Timeless
by x Varda x
Summary: Complete! What if you could control time? What if something never ended or changed because it could be frozen in time forever? Dr Rodney McKay is about to find out the hard way.
1. Ever Onwards

**Disclaimer** - "Stargate" and all related characters are the property of MGM Television Entertainment.  
**Rating** – T  
**Set** – After 'The Lost Tribe'  
**Summary** – What if you could control time? What if something never ended or changed because it could be frozen in time forever? Dr Rodney McKay is about to find out the hard way…

**Chapter 1 – Ever Onwards**

Rodney sat at the desk in Janus' Lab on Atlantis and frowned tiredly down at the laptop in front of him. Lines of indecipherable code rolled up the screen and made his eyes glaze over. He shook his head and willed his focus back.

Radek was sitting next to him and tutted in frustration as he adjusted his glasses before squinting down at his own laptop.

It had been several weeks since the lab had been discovered and there were still many files so heavily encrypted that all of Atlantis' scientists were having trouble accessing the data. McKay took it as a personal insult to his intelligence that the files were so difficult to decode. Zelenka had decided to help after Rodney had yelled at him for no apparent reason for the umpteenth time in as many days. McKay was constantly on edge and all the other scientists now turned around or fled the room when they saw him coming.

Two junior scientists were scurrying around the room behind their boss and there was a sudden loud clatter which made Rodney jump. He spun around and called out to them in a foul and mighty temper, "Would you quit that! Some of us are trying to concentrate over here and you two wrecking the place really isn't helping." He sighed angrily and frowned at one of the men as he hastily crouched down and gathered up the equipment he had dropped.

Rodney grimaced and clenched one of his hands into a tight fist. He could feel his blood pressure rising through the roof. He shouted at them again, "What is that you've broken anyway? The stuff in here is fragile. You may have destroyed something that could defeat the Wraith or… or reveal the secrets of making Zed PMs!" He waved his hands about to illustrate his annoyance more forcefully.

The scientist had just finished gathering the scattered gear and straightened up next to his companion. They both glared back at McKay, while Rodney felt his hands shaking in fury and frustration.

Radek was peering over at Rodney in exasperation. He raised his eyebrows and muttered, "Perhaps you should lock everyone out so that you are the first to get your hands on all of the technology?"

Rodney spun back around in his chair and grimaced at the impossible task taunting him on the laptop. He scrubbed a hand over his forehead and left a wide red mark. He then rubbed his eyes and muttered under his breath, "Stupid, useless, running around in circles…"

Radek looked at him in sympathy as the two junior scientists took the opportunity to flee the room while McKay was no longer paying them any attention. Before they left, one slammed a small box down on the table next to Rodney with an unpleasant smile.

Zelenka blinked at his laptop and then glanced up at Rodney again who seemed to be teetering on the brink of another major explosion even worse than the one he had had a moment ago. Radek was not very keen to be on the receiving end when McKay finally flipped, as he was now the only one within firing range. He got up and kept his distance as he said, "This _is_ very taxing on the patience. Perhaps we should take a break?"

Rodney scowled and bunched his fist again until his knuckles turned a ghostly white. His other hand rested idly on the keys of the laptop. He scrunched his face up in disgust and spoke through gritted teeth, "You can go if you want, but I'm staying here until this is decoded."

Radek shrugged, "Suit yourself," and walked out of the room leaving Rodney alone in his mood.

Rodney grimaced at the screen still taunting him and tapped a few keys to see more of the code. He rolled his eyes and closed them, but he could still see the text imprinted against his eyelids. _No escape._

He huffed angrily and folded his arms across his chest and took some deep breaths to try and calm himself down. _What was Janus hiding? Why had he made it so damned difficult to access the information?_

He felt his heart rate beginning to slow down to a more manageable level and cracked his eyes open to look at the screen again. He had run it through every single decryption matrix he had and knew that Radek had done the same just to be sure. That angered him as well. _Did the Czech scientist think that Rodney was losing his edge? _Rodney felt the fire of his temper flaring up again and struggled to quash it as it kindled his mind into more angry thoughts. _Who did he think he was? Going over all of Rodney's work to check whether it was any good?_

Rodney felt a growl building up in the back of his throat, but he swallowed it and willed himself to calm down. Radek was probably right, he was heading for a one way trip to the infirmary the way he was going. Working non-stop for hours on end late into the night and starting the same grind early every morning in the false hope that he would finally have a flash of inspiration.

The motivation had usually evaporated by about midmorning and the rest of the day was nothing but a massive frustration to him.

Rodney's stomach grumbled at him and he rubbed his hand on it to try and soothe the hungry ache he suddenly felt. He had no idea how long it had been since he ate anything and glanced down at his watch.

It was 7pm. He frowned and sifted through his memory, trying to recall his last meal. He vaguely remembered breakfast, but he had eaten that on the run. Not pausing to sit, just grabbing something from the stand and absently chewing it as he made his way back down to the lab to continue the torment of pouring over the unbreakable code.

He also had a dim memory of a powerbar being forcefully pressed into his hand by Zelenka at some point during the day.

He swayed a little in his seat and gripped the edge of the desk to remain upright. He cursed himself for his current lapse in concentration and stopped thinking about food and hunched over his laptop. He did not even notice as someone glided silently through the cloaked wall which marked the entrance to the lab and walked over to hover behind him.

"Hey, McKay, what're you up to down here on your own?"

Rodney jumped and nearly fell off his stool at the voice behind him. He was only saved by the steadying hand quickly planted firmly on his shoulder. He grumbled, "Sheppard, what do you want? Can't you see I'm busy?"

John moved around to Rodney's side and kept his hand on his friend's shoulder as he looked down at him in concern, "What, I'm not allowed to visit you now?"

McKay kept his eyes on the screen as it continued to flicker tantalising but unreadable data back and him and he muttered, "Make it sound like I'm ill…"

McKay suddenly narrowed his eyes suspiciously and asked, "Did Zelenka send you?"

John lifted the palm of one of his hands up in defence and said, "No, actually I came on my own."

"Why?"

"Look, Rodney, we're all worried about you…"

"Really?" He asked in a disbelieving snarl.

"Yes, we are. None of us have seen you in the Mess Hall for days. You're always shut away down here and well, uh, I _have_ had some reports about you…" His voice trailed off guiltily at the end.

Rodney frowned as his temper flared again and his heart sped up at the sick feeling in the howling pit of his empty belly. "Who's been telling on me? Better not have been that moron Harvey…"

John shook his head and replied, "Actually, there've been quite a few."

Rodney scowled and ground his teeth together at his disloyal subordinates. _Who were they to speak about him behind his back?_

John pressed his lips together in a grim line and let go of Rodney's shoulder. He walked across the room and picked up Zelenka's abandoned stool, carried it over and sat down next to Rodney.

He sighed quietly and clasped his hands together on the table as he looked sidelong at McKay. He said, "Maybe you should take a break, walk around the block to clear your head…"

"My head is perfectly clear, that's the problem!" Rodney retorted.

John raised an eyebrow and ploughed onwards, "…get something to eat, because you're right, you do look really ill and worn out."

"Oh, thank you for your medical opinion, Dr Sheppard! Do you want to take my blood pressure too, because I'm pretty sure it would break your equipment it's gone so high!"

"McKay!" John reached over shook the scientist sharply by his upper arm, "What the hell's gotten into you?"

Rodney grimaced and furrowed his brow as John maintained his bruising grip around his arm. "I… I'm just tired and fed up. Sorry," he finished sadly.

John softened his expression a little and released McKay's arm. "I can tell that whatever you're working on isn't doing you any favours. Maybe you should focus on something else for now?"

Rodney sighed dejectedly and very reluctantly reached up and closed the screen down on his laptop. He continued to gaze at the table and still could not meet John's eyes.

"What about this?"

Rodney frowned and shot John a puzzled look. "What?"

John was looking at the container left behind by the scientists while they were rapidly fleeing from McKay's wrath.

Rodney waved his hand at the container and said, "Dr Butterfingers and his able assistant were fiddling with that earlier. Whatever it is it's probably broken now!"

John picked up the container and shook it under Rodney's nose. The object inside rattled around and to McKay it sounded like a death knell. "No no no, stop! It might not be broken!"

John put the container down and said, "Now, that's more like it."

Rodney gazed at the object and frowned in annoyance, "It just looks like a metal panel from one of the walls." He narrowed his eyes in concentration, "No marks visible. Not sure what kind of a joke this is. Why are we now suddenly interested in wall panels? The standards really have slipped around here."

He sighed in disgust and picked up the metal, intending to take it and locate his incompetent colleagues so that he could rant at them for cataloguing something that was not even an artefact.

Suddenly the metal shifted in his grip and became hot. He yelped in fright and relaxed his hand to drop it, but it clung to his skin.

He stood up and shook his hand violently to try and get rid of it, but is stayed stuck fast. John also got up and watched in worry.

Rodney felt panic gripping him and pulled at the metal with his other hand, but it was firmly glued. He soon stopped tugging and turned his hand over to study the metal. It was completely smooth and as he watched it melted into a liquid and glided over his skin. He shivered violently as he felt it slide up his arm, across his chest and then settle around his neck.

He reached up his hands and tried to get his fingers underneath the metal as it formed a tight circle around his neck. He gasped, "Get it off me!" in helpless fear to John, who was still hovering uncertainly nearby,

John reached up and tapped his radio, but before Rodney heard anything he was falling and felt strong hands grab him under the arms before he hit the ground.

-----

TBC


	2. Fusion

**Chapter 2 – Fusion**

John stood next to Rodney's bed in the infirmary as the scientist absently curled his fingers under the seamless bright gold band encircling his neck. He tugged at it and grimaced. He had an IV line spiked into the back of his other hand and still looked pale and shaky after his recent collapse.

John asked, "How're you feeling?"

Rodney stopped fiddling with the metal and grimaced, "Tired, but surprisingly still very annoyed."

John could tell from Rodney's wide, frightened eyes and the way he continued to rub his hand around his throat that he was scared too. Who knew what the band doing to him?

John looked up as Dr Keller came over to them. She set her face in a stern expression and then softened as she glanced down at Rodney. She said, "We're just testing your blood at the moment. Aside from the exhaustion and low blood sugar level there's nothing else wrong with you that we can see."

John frowned across at her and gestured his hand down towards Rodney's neck, "What about that? Is it doing anything to him?"

Rodney jutted out his chin indignantly, "I am here you know! You could just _ask_…"

Jennifer gave him a tight smile and said, "The scanner doesn't work properly around him. Dr Zelenka is coming over with some more equipment."

"Hey, I could look at it for you." Rodney pushed himself upright in an attempt to get up, but John put a hand on McKay's chest and forced him back down.

"Not until we have more information. Don't want you passing out on us again now, do we?"

Rodney sighed in defeat and mumbled, "No."

Jennifer folded her arms across her chest as Rodney brushed the palm of his hand over the front of the smooth metal again. She suddenly reached down and firmly grabbed his hand away from his throat and laid it down on his chest. "Stop messing around with it. I can't see any way to remove it. There's no clip or join anywhere around the whole thing. It's not tight enough to restrict your breathing or the blood flow to your brain, but none of us know whether it might suddenly shrink."

John nodded grimly and then smirked at Rodney's current plight. "Looks like you're just going to have to live with your new fashion statement and a rather snazzy necklace for a while yet."

"Oh, the wit! You know, maybe it would be better if it did choke me so that I could get away from you!"

Jennifer furrowed her brow as she missed the sarcasm in his voice. She took Rodney's chin in her hand and tilted his face towards her. "Don't say that! We'll find a way."

"Maybe I can help?" An accented voice behind them asked.

Ronon and Teyla were with Dr Zelenka and they helped him wheel a trolley of equipment into the infirmary. They manoeuvred it next to Rodney's bed and stood back.

Teyla rounded on McKay and peered down into his face in concern, "Are you alright, Rodney?"

He replied angrily, "Why is everyone acting like I'm dying! Why are we even doing this in the infirmary? My lab would be better."

Jennifer rested her hand on his shoulder, "Rodney, you collapsed. I'm not letting you out of here until I'm sure you're alright."

"Well, I _was_ fine until your lot stabbed the needle into the back of my hand and made a hole in my arm during the blood letting earlier."

John noticed Jennifer's hurt expression and flashed a warning look down at him, "McKay!"

Jennifer lifted her hand away and her mouth turned down even further in sadness as she looked at the ground. She walked around Rodney's bed and stood next to Zelenka as he waved a portable scanner along Rodney.

Teyla frowned and said in a soft and calming voice, "You should understand, Rodney, we are only concerned for your health."

He folded his arms across his chest and winced when it shifted the line in the back of his hand.

Radek stood right next to Rodney and angled the scanner down as close as he could to the metal band. McKay glared at him in annoyance while the other scientist tapped the screen a few times and muttered in Czech. He asked, "Anything?"

Radek peered over the top of the scanner and said, "No. It is scrambling the reading. Perhaps a form of radiation, but I cannot tell."

Rodney stretched up in an attempt to grab the scanner, but Zelenka was ready and lifted it out of reach while patting Rodney's hand down. "Can't I even have a look to see what it's doing to _me_?" His face fell and his eyes darted between the people standing around his bed in panic. "What if the radiation's scrambling my brain?"

John shook his head, "Why would Janus make something that hurts humans?"

Rodney gave him an incredulous look, "What the whole blowing up Stargates thing wasn't enough for you?"

John shrugged, "Well, he stopped that one…"

Rodney sighed dejectedly and moved his hands away from his chest and curled all of his fingers under the band around his neck. "Can you remove it before my brain dribbles out of my ears?"

Ronon was unfazed by the comment while several of the others flinched at the image passing through their minds. He grabbed a tool from the top of the trolley and walked over to Rodney.

John eyed the bolt cutters in Ronon's hands impassively. Rodney had started trembling in fear over what Ronon's intentions were with the lethal cutters. Jennifer saw Rodney quaking and her instinctual concern took over her and she rushed over to his side and held his upper arm.

John nodded at Ronon who drew the bolt cutters down towards Rodney's face, but then he stopped with the blades hovering close to the scientist. He set his face in a stern and angry expression which made Rodney even more fearful. He closed his eyes and Jennifer squeezed his arm gently.

John folded his arms across his chest and said, "It's not working."

Rodney cracked his shocked eyes open and looked confused, "What?"

Ronon shrugged and lowered the cutters away from the scientist, who had shrunk down into the bed as far as he could. "Worth a try."

Teyla elaborated, "The metal reacted to your Ancient gene. We thought we may be able to get you to release it on your own."

Rodney's eyes widened, "What, by scaring me half to death? Great plan. I wonder who's genius idea that was, Sheppard?"

John unfolded his arms and raised his palms, "It's not my fault your duff Ancient gene's playing up again."

Radek rolled his eyes and said, "Maybe you are curious about what it does and do not want to let it go."

"As much as I like necklaces and the constant threat of death hanging over my head, even I wouldn't be that stupid."

John raised his eyebrows and drawled, "Right. Even for a new scientific discovery?"

"Not one that could kill me at any moment!"

Ronon lifted the cutters again and said, "Might as well use these then."

Jennifer's eyes widened and she quickly said, "No! It's too close to Rodney's neck. If you slip… Also, if the band deforms it could crush his throat."

Rodney grimaced and covered his neck protectively with his hands. Ronon walked back to the trolley and lifted up another contraption. "What about this then?"

John nodded at the ring cutting tool. "That's better."

Jennifer called over a couple of nurses to help. Together they pushed Rodney's bed away from the wall and removed the pillows so that he was lying completely flat. She said, "I'll do it," and Ronon handed her the tool.

"Keep perfectly still," she said soothingly down to Rodney, who was looking at the people swarming around him in fright. Jennifer held the tool in front of his sightline and showed him. "Look, there's a cutting blade, but underneath there's a protector piece. When it cuts through the metal band the blade will hit the shield. You'll be fine. Just don't twitch."

She handed Rodney some goggles and he hastily put them over his eyes. Jennifer and all the nurses also put goggles on. Rodney's face relaxed a little and the nurses used their hands to hold the sides of his head and shoulders firmly to make sure that he did not shift.

Jennifer slid the protector shield under the metal band carefully and nodded down at Rodney. "Don't move."

She narrowed her eyes in concentration and gripped the band with the ring cutter. She then started turning the blade against the smooth metal around Rodney's neck. He grimaced and closed his eyes tightly.

Jennifer called out softly to him, "Open your eyes, Rodney."

He furrowed his brow and obeyed. He looked up at her face looming over him.

Suddenly he flinched and bent his knees up under the sheets. Jennifer quickly moved the ring cutter and only just got it away from his neck in time as he pulled against the restraining hands and lifted his arms up to rub his palms on his forehead. He shoved the goggles up into his hair as he covered his whole face with his hands and groaned.

Jennifer handed the tool to Ronon who was hovering behind her. The nurses released their grip from Rodney's head and arms and he rolled over onto his side and curled up with his hands pressed against his temples.

John rushed over and asked, "What happened? You didn't slip, there's no blood."

Jennifer shook her head and patted Rodney's arm. She asked him, "Where does it hurt?"

He moaned and rocked a little, but the tremors were already diminishing and he soon let go of his head and rolled onto his back. He looked up at Jennifer and Sheppard and mumbled, "Headache," through gritted teeth.

Radek was looking on from the corner of the infirmary and asked, "What about the metal? Did you cut it off?"

John ran his hand around the band still stubbornly encircling Rodney's neck and did not feel any grooves or see any marks from the recent cutting attempt. "No. It's still smooth."

Rodney groaned again and closed his eyes, "I'm doomed."

Radek shook his head and said confidently, "Not if I can help it. Get some rest, Rodney. I will look at Ancient Database and Janus' research we have decoded."

Jennifer smiled at the Czech scientist and then glanced down at Rodney. "I'm going to keep you in overnight to monitor you and get your blood analysis done. I'll get you some painkillers and something to help you sleep."

When Rodney was resting comfortably and all the others had left the infirmary, John got up from his chair next to Rodney's bed and walked into Keller's lab. He spoke very quietly and asked, "So what do you think, Doc?"

She pressed her lips in a thin line as she stared at the information scrolling up the laptop in from of her. She turned to him and said, "Honestly, I don't know. I've nearly finished my analysis of his blood sample and haven't found anything so far. The headache when we tried to remove it earlier is a cause for concern. I don't think we'd better try that again."

"What about if he's sedated?"

Jennifer shook her head, "We just don't know enough about how it's affecting his system yet. The scanner doesn't work on him and if he can't tell us when he's in pain, we could kill him."

John nodded sadly, "I know. I'm going to call Teyla and Ronon down to stay with him while I go and check on Radek."

He then looked in kindness down at Jennifer and said, "Keep at it, and don't give up hope."

She replied to his comment with a small smile and he walked away, leaving her with the data.

----------

TBC


	3. Endless Night

**Chapter 3 – Endless Night**

Rodney was awoken by a sharp pain. He flinched and snapped his eyes widely open. He soon localised the source of the sting and watched as blood ran down his hand and dripped onto the white infirmary sheets.

"Oh, ow." Rodney mumbled with a grimace as the IV line that had just been torn out of his hand lay completely still on the bed next to him.

Suddenly, memories of liquid metal strangling him, blades and bolt cutters flashed across his mind. He reached up with his uninjured hand and closed his eyes when he felt something cold and unyielding around his throat. "Oh, great… not a bad dream. Why is it never just a bad dream?"

He looked around the infirmary as his hand shook a little through the pain. There was no-one else in there, nobody even sitting with him while he slept. He reasoned that he had probably scared them all away with his ranting. "_Even John though?" _He thought sadly.

He called out into the empty room, "Um, hello? Bleeding over here." His voice echoed strangely around the infirmary and Rodney frowned. "Jennifer?"

There was still no reply. Rodney sighed and ignoring the whiteness of the sheets he pressed the back of his hand against the covers to try and stem the blood flow and cease the smarting sensation of the scratch.

He gazed down at his other hand and saw that his finger was red where the heart monitor had been attached. "Oh, great patient care! I could be dead by now and no-one's even noticed yet!" His expression changed into one of confusion as his comments bounced from the walls and came back to him with a dull metallic clanging quality about them.

He looked up from his hands and glanced warily around the room and listened. He could not hear anything at all. None of the usual sounds of the city reached his ears, no bleeps from the equipment or the fans of the computers. All that Rodney could hear were sounds emanating from himself. His shaky breathing was loud in his ears along with the slight rustle of the covers as he moved his sore hand involuntarily against them.

His eyes soon settled on his watch where it was resting on the table next to him. He narrowed his eyes when he saw that it was 3.17am. He did not feel at all tired, even though he had only been asleep for a few hours.

He set his mouth in a grim line and decided that he would need to help himself if the Doctors and nurses who were supposed to be responsible for his well-being could not be bothered to monitor or check on him. He sighed in sorrow as he thought maybe he had upset them to the point where they did not care what happened to him. _But not Jennifer! No no no, please, not her as well!_

He pushed himself upright and shoved the covers away. He looked down at the white scrubs he was dressed in and started to feel a little queasy when he saw dark red splotches of blood on the material from his hand. He wiggled his toes and glanced around the floor around his bed and located some slippers tucked just underneath.

Rodney planted his feet on the ground and shivered at the coldness of the floor. He intended to kick the slippers out from under the bed, but when he hooked one of his feet against them, but they did not move. His foot connected with the side of them, but no matter how hard he shoved they remained where they were.

Rodney sighed in agitation and crouched down. He held his cut hand against his chest and used his other one to grasp one of the slippers. He frowned as there was no give in the material and clenched his teeth angrily when they still did not move. He muttered under his breath in fury, "Sheppard… what the hell is the point of gluing slippers to the floor? Absolutely hilarious! Oh yes, tormenting a sick man with your little tricks and not even hanging around to watch the fun!"

After a few more seconds of futile tugging, Rodney gave up and decided he would have to go barefoot. He straightened up and clutched his head as he swayed a little. "Oh, blood loss. Not good."

He shivered at the freezing floor under his feet as the coldness passed up into his ankles and legs. He wandered over to Jennifer's lab and his footfalls broke the crushing silence as they echoed dully back at him.

He opened his mouth in shock when he saw Jennifer sitting unmoving at her desk with a laptop in front of her. Rodney called out, "Jennifer?" as he ran over to her in panic.

He stood next to her and looked at her face. His mouth dropped open and his eyes widened in fright. Jennifer's face was a frozen mask as she gazed unseeing at the laptop and remained totally still. Rodney waved a hand quickly in front of her face, "Jennifer? Wh-what's going on?"

Rodney furrowed his brow when he looked at her eyes. They shone brightly, but there was no trace of life or recognition behind them and it shook Rodney in terror right to his core. He patted her hand gently as it lay motionless on the keyboard of the laptop. Her skin was warm, but her hand did not move as Rodney tried to squeeze it gently. He mumbled in a small voice, "What's wrong? Can you hear me?"

Her hand felt like stone and Rodney shook his head and grimaced as he moved his shaking hand up to her neck and felt for a pulse. It was like Jennifer had become a statue and Rodney could not press the artery in her neck to find the pulse. He turned to look at the laptop she was so transfixed by and saw medical information and blood data on the screen. He saw his name at the top of the readout and then his eyes tracked down to the bottom of the screen and he saw the clock.

"What the hell? No no no no no. This can't be happening."

Rodney dashed out of the lab and over to the table where his watch was still sitting. He curled his fingers around it, but it stayed glued to the top and his fingertips came together sharply when he failed to move it. He used the palm of his hand to hit it, in an attempt to break it away from the force keeping it stuck fast. He uttered a soft, "Oh," as his hand impacted the watch, but the only thing to give was his palm.

Rodney flipped his throbbing hand over and studied the red patch of bruising forming across his palm. He clenched his teeth together and leant over to look at the readout. It was still 3.17am. He ran back into the lab and gazed down in resignation at the clock on the laptop. It also read 3.17am.

He turned his back on Jennifer's still form and paced about in the lab, speaking quickly to himself. Trying to convince himself that he was talking to Jennifer's waxen visage, although she did not seem to hear him. "I've certainly been moving around for more than a minute. Are the things that don't move linked in some way? Can anything at all be moved? Why am I the only one aware of this? Jennifer…" he looked across at her, but shook his head sadly when she remained as though she was petrified.

Rodney's hurt hand moved upwards and he absently fingered the band around his neck while he thought. The bleeding had stopped, but there was a large shiny gash across his skin. He suddenly stopped pacing and his eyes widened in realisation. "Oh, it's not you or the objects is it? It's me. I'm the one who caused this."

He gripped the band tightly and pulled at it. He winced as the cut on his hand opened again. He fought with it for a few seconds until his neck was red and sore. "Oh, come on! Get off me. I don't want to be stuck on my own in this ridiculous place."

He soon stopped pulling and narrowed his eyes, "Unless…" He hoped the effect was only local and decided to go for a walk.

He nodded his head at Jennifer and said, "Sorry, I'm going to have to leave you now. I'll be back later, I promise."

Jennifer continued to gaze vacantly at the laptop while Rodney sighed in frustration and left the infirmary.

----------

Rodney's feet slapped loudly against the floor in the stillness as he walked. The noise reached his ears in a reverberating tone that sounded oddly musical.

He sighed deeply and looked up and down the corridor at all the closed doors. He tried a few, but nothing responded to him. He swiped his hand over the sensor but there was no effect. He tried to pry away the panel and even leant his shoulder on one of the doors to get it to move.

Rodney continued to stalk along aimlessly. He found a transporter, but it did not work for him. Rodney rubbed his bruised hand across his cheek in exasperation and muttered, "Ugh, stairs…"

He walked over to the nearest staircase and was glad that the doors were already open for him. His breath was loud as he climbed up to the Gate Room in the muffling and absolute silence. He was beginning to feel a little unnerved by the lack of noise. Usually, even when he was alone, he could always hear the power conduits humming and singing softly behind the walls. People walking past him or his lab and talking, but the oppressive lack of any other sound than his pants as he continued to push himself to move faster up the stairs was unsettling him.

When Rodney reached the Gate Room, he sighed loudly into the wide open space and waved his arms about in an exaggerated gesture. He kept them held out away from his body and called out, "Can anybody hear me?"

He quickly lowered his hands when his voice bounced back at him in an eerie and hollow distortion of how a human voice should sound. He felt a shiver running through him at the lack of response.

Rodney furrowed his brow and held his palm against the gash on the back of his other hand as he slowly walked across the room. He saw marines gazing into space like mannequins. They held their P90s ready, but no flicker of recognition passed across their features, even when Rodney went right up to one of them and lightly pushed him.

He suddenly felt a weight of loneliness and the terrible feeling of being trapped. The sensation intensified into fear when he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye.

He spun around and looked at the Stargate, where he thought he had seen a white flash. He held his sore hand more tightly and tried to get his rapid heart rate and breathing under control after the fright. He called out quietly, "Hello?"

Another flash and a slight breeze of air whipped past Rodney's side. He jumped and turned on the spot. "This isn't funny! What do you want?"

Rodney continued to look around the Gate Room warily as all out terror gripped his heart and squeezed painfully. His wide and unblinking eyes swept around the room; looking for any sign of what was causing the flashes he had briefly seen. He kept his arms protectively across the front of his torso and clasped his damaged hand more tightly.

A quiet voice made him squeak a little in panic and step backwards until he was pressing himself against a wall. He did not want anything to sneak up behind him and he did not feel safe from the flashes of light.

"Seven rings, seven… s… seven stars… eleven… the Wraith! Oh, oh, no!"

Rodney thought that the voice was coming from up in the Control Room. It was very soft, but he could make out every word in the stifling, silent void. He took a deep and steadying breath to try and calm his acute fear and muttered, "Get a grip, McKay."

The voice stopped and then suddenly started to speak more loudly, "Who's there? Is th-that you? How did you find me? Why do you always find me in this place? Can't you leave me alone?"

Rodney felt a liquid chill of terror slip down his spine at the speech and the hopeless fear he could hear in the voice. He steeled his nerves and walked away from the wall. He turned his head quickly and kept looking all around the Gate Room to make sure nothing blindsided him as he went up the stairs.

There were a couple of Gate Technicians playing an eternal game of cards with their feet resting on the control panels, but he ignored them.

He soon found the source of the voice and crouched down next to a man huddled against the back wall in the Control Room. He had his knees drawn up and was rocking slightly against them with his head down. He was dressed all in white and Rodney did not miss the significance of the bright band of gold metal around the man's neck.

Rodney narrowed his eyes and asked, "Were you the one dashing around the Gate Room a minute ago, scaring me half to death?"

The man lifted his head and gazed at Rodney. McKay nearly fell over backwards in fright at the haunted face peering at him. He shivered as the man continued to stare at him, making Rodney feel deeply uneasy, like the man was burrowing into his mind with his expressionless eyes.

"I'm Dr Rodney McKay. Who are you?"

The man regarded him continuously and Rodney felt his anger level building. He reached forwards and shook the man's shoulder firmly. "Who are you?"

The man quickly lunged at Rodney and grabbed the front of his scrubs in a surprisingly strong and firm grip. He stood up and lifted Rodney with him. He spun them both around and forced McKay against the wall he had just been leaning on himself.

Rodney cried out in fright at the hands clawed around the material over his chest as they pushed him up to the wall. He struggled as the man pinning him just looked on impassively. He muttered, "Seven… the seventh ring. Stars."

Rodney's breathing hitched in panicked gasps and he said angrily, "What the hell's that supposed to mean?"

The man merely mumbled, "Wraith," and then released his grip on Rodney. He let his hands drop down to his sides as he stared at McKay.

Rodney straightened out his ruffled shirt and rubbed his hands on his chest, checking for damage. He did not find any, but the man had put the wind up him.

Rodney frowned in confusion and asked, "What happened here? Why is everyone frozen?" He waved a hand up to indicate the metal band around the man's neck and then at the one he also had. "What are they? What do they do? Can they be removed?"

The man's eyes bored unblinkingly into Rodney's and McKay soon had to look away from the searching gaze.

Suddenly the man's face altered from its neutral expression into one of fear. He turned on the spot and looked across the Control Room towards the top of the stairs. He cried, "He's found me again! Oh, no! He's coming! He'll find us… get away from me."

Rodney followed the man's gaze, but could not see anything or anyone with them.

The man suddenly rounded on McKay and jabbed a finger into his chest, "It's you… You brought him here didn't you?"

Rodney grimaced and turned sideways to shuffle away from the man. His heart was pounding rapidly against his ribcage and he wondered whether he was going to have a heart attack. The man followed him as he walked backwards across the Control Room with his palms up in surrender. He began to feel a little light headed and his vision clouded over briefly as the room swayed around him. He shook his head to clear it

Rodney stammered, "I… I don't know what… you're talking… about. Wh-who is '_he_?'"

The man suddenly stopped walking and blinked slowly at Rodney. He pointed a finger at Rodney's chest and mumbled, "Blood."

Rodney grimaced and looked down at himself and nodded, "From my hand earlier." As he tilted his head down, a drop of dark red liquid fell and landed on his chest. He frowned.

The man muttered again, "Blood."

Rodney looked up and his eyes widened as he watched a trail of red pour from the man's nose and splatter down his white clothes. Rodney felt something tickling his chin and reached up a shaking hand to brush it away. When he glanced down blearily at his fingers, they were shiny with blood.

He opened his mouth and uttered a soft, "Oh," before his eyes slid shut and he collapsed heavily onto the ground.

----------

TBC


	4. Wishful Thinking

**Chapter 4 – Wishful Thinking**

Jennifer Keller sat at her desk in the lab just off the infirmary and rubbed her tired eyes. She was checking over Rodney's blood sample for the second time to make sure there was nothing she had missed. She could not find anything in his bloodstream to cause the collapse he had suffered earlier. She was very close to handing the entire investigation over to the science teams as the affect on Rodney seemed to be from technology rather than any kind of pathogen in his system. She would just have to focus on keeping him alive until they had some answers.

She glanced down at the clock on her laptop. It was already past 3am. She sighed and pushed herself out of her chair. She stretched her stiff back and aching muscles from sitting still for too long. She then walked over to the doorway out into the infirmary.

Jennifer wandered over to Rodney as he slept. His heart monitor beeped slowly and quietly in the room. She checked the readouts and made sure the IV line was still secure. She needlessly straightened the covers over his chest and gently patted his shoulder.

He stirred and mumbled a little in his sleep, but did not wake. Jennifer smiled down at him and whispered, "We'll figure this out. Don't worry, Rodney."

She frowned in concern at the metal around his neck and hoped they could remove it soon or at least find out what it was doing to him. She mentally shook herself for lingering by him for too long and rapidly went back into her lab and sat down.

Jennifer stared intensely at the screen again and typed a few keys to alter the readout for study.

Suddenly, Jennifer felt a sharp pain in her hand, like it had just been crushed. A similar sensation hit her neck and she yelped and nearly fell out of her seat.

The pain coincided with the sound of a heart monitor flat lining out in the infirmary. There was only one patient in there at the moment and Jennifer rubbed her bruised neck with her good hand as she dashed out of her lab.

She met several night duty Doctors who had been working in another room nearby and gazed down in confusion at Rodney's empty bed. The IV stand had toppled over onto the floor and the white sheets were spotted with fresh blood where they were pushed back.

She shared a look of bewilderment with her colleagues and was about to call the Control Room on her radio, when the PA system in the infirmary activated.

"_Medical emergency in the Control Room!"_

Jennifer hit her radio as the medical team around her galvanized and gathered their gear. "What's the situation?"

_"It's Dr McKay. He's collapsed. We didn't see him coming up here. His nose is bleeding, we had to turn him on his side when he started choking."_

"Acknowledged. We'll be there in a minute."

Jennifer nodded at her equally confused colleagues and helped them wheel a gurney with their gear on it out of the infirmary and into the transporter.

She stepped out into the Gate Room and silently cursed to Ancients for not installing a transporter up the stairs. Two marines came over to help and carried the backboard and gear up the stairs into the Control Room just ahead of Jennifer and her team.

Two Technicians were crouched down next to Rodney's still form as he lay in the recovery position on the floor. There was a small puddle of blood on the floor under his head. The Technicians backed away as Jennifer and her team set to work.

Keller announced, "Pulse is good, airway is clear. The bleeding has already stopped."

They inserted a fresh IV line, placed an oxygen mask over Rodney's face and wrapped a bandage around his other hand when they found the nasty gash across it.

The marines strapped him on the backboard and carried him down the stairs to the waiting gurney in the Gate Room while Jennifer held the IV bag aloft.

The medical team wheeled Rodney back to the infirmary quickly as he remained unconscious and oblivious to the action all around him.

----------------

"What do you think? Some kind of teleporter?"

Voices broke through the unconscious haze and Rodney opened his eyes and blinked slowly as he saw several figures having a conversation next to him. He closed his eyes tightly to clear the sleep and opened them again just as Radek spoke. "I do not know. We have found nothing in database. We really need to ask him."

Jennifer said, "Well, he's asleep and after what happened in the middle of the night, it would probably be better to let him get some rest."

Rodney cleared his throat and they all stopped talking and looked down at him. Jennifer asked, "How are you feeling?"

Rodney glanced down at himself and saw the bandage around his hand and the IV line in his other hand. "Both my hands are sore, bit of a headache… What time is it?"

John glanced at his watch and replied, "9am."

Jennifer patted Rodney's shoulder and walked away to get some painkillers.

Zelenka was clutching a tablet and peered down at Rodney like he was searching his face for something. Rodney shifted uncomfortably and snapped, "What?"

John said, "What do you remember about last night?"

Rodney grimaced, "Lots of horrible things. Oh, Sheppard, why did you glue my slippers to the floor? Did you think it was funny?"

John looked confused and crouched down. He straightened up and waved the slippers at Rodney. "I'm not sure what you mean."

Radek frowned and spun his tablet around so that Rodney could see the screen. It was showing a video feed from the infirmary at 3.16am. He muttered, "Watch," and started the tape.

Rodney grabbed the tablet and winced as his sore hand pulled. He saw himself lying sleeping in the bed and Jennifer in her lab. Suddenly he vanished from the screen and Jennifer jolted as if she had been hit. Radek switched the feed to the same time index in the Control Room. Rodney watched in amazement as he reappeared and collapsed onto the ground with his nose bleeding.

Rodney mumbled, "I suppose that makes sense. I was kind of hoping it was just a nightmare."

John frowned, "Was it a teleporter?"

McKay grimaced, "No. It froze time."

The eyebrows of both men next to Rodney shot up in disbelief at the same time. Rodney quickly asked, "Any luck with the Database?"

Radek shook his head and then said, "No, I will get back to it. Dr Keller said she will be releasing you later. I want you to come down and help us if you feel up to it. You can give us all details of event last night."

John patted Rodney's shoulder and said, "I've got to go as well. Mr Woolsey is concerned and wants to be updated on what's going on."

McKay watched them as they both left the infirmary. He looked down to study his bandaged hand and wondered where Jennifer was with the painkillers for his rapidly flaring and angry headache.

"Rodney? Rodney!"

He looked up in shock and found Jennifer hovering close to him with her hand on his shoulder. She had been nowhere near him a moment earlier and he stuttered, "Where did you come from?"

"You were miles away. It took me a while to get your attention." She narrowed her eyes at him, pressed some pills into his palm and gave him a glass of water.

Rodney knocked them back and then handed her the empty glass. She shook her head and said, "I'm going to release you back to light duties. I've asked the others to keep a close eye on you to make sure you don't push yourself too hard and collapse again."

Rodney opened his mouth to protest but she cut him off, "I want you back here every couple of hours for a checkup. If you feel any new symptoms or dizziness, I want you back here straight away."

Rodney nodded humbly and Jennifer pursed her lips and removed the IV line from his hand. Rodney grimaced as she pressed a plaster over the small hole before she walked away.

McKay watched her as she retreated into the lab off the infirmary. He looked around the room and wondered exactly when she was going to release him. He shivered as a tingling sensation spread out across his whole body.

Rodney's eyes widened as his ears picked up a high pitched whistle. While he watched, he saw a blur moving across the infirmary. It zoomed past the end of his bed and out of the door. It then walked around to his side and the whine became higher and louder. It zipped back across the room into the lab. Rodney frowned in puzzlement and got out of the bed. He walked over towards the lab. The blur suddenly came at him blindingly fast and he was too slow to move out of its path. It hit his shoulder and knocked him onto the ground.

Rodney rubbed his throbbing shoulder and stayed down as he saw the blur whipping around the room more quickly and the high-pitched noise intensified. The single blur was soon joined by several others. One of them came closer to Rodney and he tried to roll out of the way. He was still too slow and felt something hit him in the stomach. He coughed and clutched his midsection as he curled around the pain to try and lessen it and protect himself from further harm.

He heard shuffling feet above the tinny sounds which were beginning to hurt his ears and make his headache worse, despite the painkillers he had just taken. The footsteps were at the correct pitch and gradually got louder.

Rodney looked around at the blurs still zooming past him as he lay there. He decided to try and move out of the line of fire and pushed himself backwards to sit against the wall. He looked across the infirmary towards the door and saw a man standing completely still in the corridor and glaring back at him. It was a different man from the night before and Rodney saw that he was holding a long, thin spike of metal in one of his hands, which looked like some kind of crude weapon.

Rodney stood up and called out to him, "You're not the one from before. Who are you? What do you want?"

The man looked even more haunted than the other one and Rodney thought he saw a flicker of remorseless evil pass across the face peering back at him.

Rodney continued to stare and was starting to feel a little unnerved as he wondered about the intentions of the figure. Blurs still zoomed around the infirmary between them and the high-pitched wailing sounds had not abated.

Suddenly the man vanished and reappeared a couple of metres closer to Rodney. He was still in the same stance and still holding the spike. Rodney cried out quietly in fright and could now see that the spike was stained dark brown as he stood under the brighter lights in the infirmary. The man's clothes had long since degenerated into dark rags and he opened his mouth and grinned malevolently at Rodney.

McKay saw yet another gold band around the man's neck.

Suddenly the man vanished again and instantly reappeared within striking distance of Rodney. He raised the spike above his head and brought it down quickly towards McKay's chest.

Rodney yelped in panic and covered his face with his hands. He felt a sharp blow to his side and found himself falling to the ground. He hit the floor heavily and rolled to see who had just shoved him out of the way. The white-clad man from the night before who had spoken only in riddles was shaking his head as though scolding him.

He muttered, "I said he would find us. Do not upset Rorkan. I told you not to."

Rodney looked up and saw Rorkan was struggling with the spike. He had embedded it in the wall where Rodney had been standing only moments ago. He asked, "Rorkan? Hmm, so what's your name?"

"S-s-seven?" The man shook his head and rubbed his temple trying to recall a long forgotten memory. "Um, stars… Oh, Solian! I think… Although it has been forever since I was called _anything_."

Rorkan won his fight with the spike and rounded on the two men. Solian looked intensely afraid and called out to Rodney, who was still on the floor, "You run. You survive." He then dashed out of the infirmary.

Rodney was too slow to push himself up as Rorkan came at him again. He covered his head again and screamed in anticipation as the spike plunged down through the air towards him.

"Rodney! Rodney!?" A woman was shouting at him and he felt strong hands grabbing his wrists and prying his arms away from his head as he curled his knees up to his chest and rocked on his back on the floor.

McKay's scream faltered and ended with a yelp as he looked up into Jennifer's worried face as she knelt down next to him. Rodney let his legs drop down with his knees bent up as he lay still.

Jennifer rested a hand on his forehead and sighed before she asked, "Oh, Rodney, where have you been all this time? You vanished from the infirmary this morning. We've spent most of the day looking for you, but found nothing. Until now."

Rodney felt a lump of fear in his throat and his heart palpitated in his chest as the adrenaline continued to flood his system. He asked, "This morning? I've only been awake for a few minutes at most."

Jennifer frowned at him and said, "It's nearly 6pm! What's going on with you?"

Rodney rolled over, winced and rubbed the bruise on his belly. Jennifer helped him upright and guided him over towards the bed he thought he had only vacated a moment ago. The sheets had been stripped and replaced with fresh ones. He sat on the edge of the bed and Jennifer gazed across at him in concern.

Rodney quickly said, "I need to get to Janus' Lab to continue working on that code. If we can't decipher it, I might get stuck out of phase with normal time forever." He did not want to tell her about the attack or the other people he had seen with the bands around their necks. He thought she might be forced the keep him in the infirmary under mental health regulations if she found out.

Jennifer narrowed her eyes and said, "There was nothing keeping you in here this morning. I'm going to release you, but I want someone with you all the time just in case you collapse or disappear again."

Rodney laughed softly, "All the _time_…"

Jennifer gave him an exasperated look as she walked away to find him some clothes to change into.

----------

TBC


	5. Project 117

_A/N – Wow, thanks for all the reviews! This is quite a long chapter, but hopefully some of your questions will now be answered…_

**Chapter 5 – Project 117**

"Oh, my honour guard's finally arrived," Rodney said as John came into the infirmary.

John ignored the comment as he went over to the scientist, who was now back in his uniform and waiting impatiently. "Where have you been all day, McKay?"

"Right here. Getting bashed about and attacked by crazy people. For me it was only a couple of minutes though. Seems the device can not only freeze time, but speed it up."

John whistled quietly as they stepped out into the corridor, "Does it do anything else?"

Rodney paused for a moment and his eyes darted about as he looked down at the floor, "What like slow time down and make it go backwards? No, at least not yet." He rubbed his belly absently and rolled one of his shoulders as his expression drifted down into a brood.

John took hold of Rodney's uninjured shoulder and asked in concern, "Who attacked you and why?"

Rodney grimaced and glanced up at John's face. "Two people; both clearly insane. One says things that don't make any sense and the other didn't say anything at all as he came at me with a… with a," Rodney gulped, "spike."

John baulked and took Rodney's upper arm in a firm grasp. "Come with me."

"What… where?"

"The armoury. I can't protect you if you go out of phase again."

"Oh, uh, okay."

Rodney continued to rub his abdomen as they left the transporter and approached the armoury. As they walked into the room, John noticed and asked, "When was the last time you ate anything?"

Rodney frowned and lowered his hand. "I don't know. Yesterday, I think. A powerbar around lunchtime."

John's eyebrows shot up, "I know Keller had you on a drip, but that's an awfully long time for you to go without any proper food."

"Yes. I wonder why I've not gone into hypoglycaemic shock yet? I don't even feel hungry." He rubbed his eyes and frowned, "Or tired."

John shrugged and said, "Well, you did sleep for quite a while in the infirmary last night."

"I know! At least ten hours. Probably longer as I don't know how long time had been frozen before I woke up with this." He waved his bandaged hand in front of himself.

John grabbed one of the tac vests hanging on a rack and handed it to Rodney, who quickly put it on and zipped it up. McKay then clipped on a belt and thigh holster and John handed him a sidearm.

John rounded on him after he had finished packing extra ammo and powerbars into his vest and said quickly, "Now, I don't want you going all heroic on me, Rodney. You see these people again; you try to get away from them. Do you understand?"

Rodney lifted his chin and folded his arms over the bulky pockets of his tac vest. "Run away? But I'm the only one who can see them. I'm not that much of a coward, Sheppard."

John gave him an exasperated smile and said, "I know. But if you get hurt while time is frozen or you're out of phase; we won't be able to get to you now, will we?"

"Oh," Rodney's indignant face fell very quickly in realisation.

John shrugged, "I'll escort you to the lab and get the Mess Hall to send down some food."

-------------

"Why aren't we going to Janus' Lab?" Rodney asked as he approached the main science lab with John.

"It's off limits after what happened. Mr Woolsey said it's too dangerous until you've decoded all of Janus' research.

"Oh, okay." Rodney looked at John as they walked down the corridor and asked, "Anyway, what's been going on since I disappeared?"

John shrugged, "We spent all day looking for you. A few of the scientists helped and Zelenka's got everyone else working on that code and the database, but I don't think he's having a lot of luck."

Raised voices, one speaking in Czech, wafted down the corridor towards the two men and John waved his hand in front of himself to indicate the now audible evidence of what he had just said.

John waited by the door like a sentry as McKay entered the lab and Zelenka saw him. The Czech instantly stopped speaking to the female scientist in front of him and went over to McKay.

"Ah, Rodney. We have been looking for you all day. What happened?"

Rodney told him about how time had sped up and Radek nodded, "Very interesting. We have found nothing in database about time travel or the necklaces."

Rodney coughed and muttered, "It's an Ancient device."

Zelenka walked over to a nearby laptop with Rodney. McKay was surprised by the number of scientists in the lab, all intent on helping him. There were about fifteen of them crammed into the room. Some spoke, others typed and rubbed their foreheads in exasperation. The woman who had been arguing with Radek was studying some equations on a large whiteboard and tapping a marker pen rapidly against her palm.

Rodney asked, "What about Janus' database?" He shoved another scientist out of their seat so that he could sit down next to Radek. The man huffed angrily but did not say anything.

"I have others double checking it now. I think what we need is in the encoded part we cannot access."

A marine entered the room and John pointed over at McKay. The man deposited a tray of food from the Mess Hall next to him and quickly exited. Rodney absently picked at the food but did not eat any as pulled up the laptop and changed the screen to show the code.

"Ugh," he sighed at the nonsensical data and shovelled a mouthful of casserole in his mouth. He chewed it slowly and swallowed. He frowned and pushed the tray away.

"Rodney, what is it?" Radek asked in worry at McKay's strange behaviour.

"I don't know. I just don't feel hungry. Maybe it's the device doing something to me."

John was looking across the room in concern, but he did not intervene. He hoped Rodney's friend had it under control, so he waited.

"You _must_ eat, Rodney. Especially now; you are no good to us if you faint again."

Rodney scowled and muttered angrily under his breath, "I _collapsed_, twice. The second time from massive blood loss."

"A nose bleed?" Zelenka said incredulously. He quickly continued as McKay glared at him, "Alright, well it is up to you, it is your health. Anyway, you have more details about device now, so hopefully we can crack this code."

Rodney moved his angry expression from Radek to the laptop and scanned across the lines of code as he had done for far too many hours of his life already. He shook his head and changed to the database they had already decoded.

He typed in 'Solian' and 'Rorkan,' hit enter and went back to the code while he waited. He looked at the individual characters and tried to see any kind of pattern. There was a mixture of Wraith, Ancient and Gate symbols in amongst the usual programming code.

After a few minutes, John went over to Rodney and peered over his shoulder. "Aren't you going to eat that, McKay?"

Radek pushed up his glasses and leant forwards to study his laptop intently as he said, "I tried, Colonel, he is a stubborn…" he trailed off into Czech and John grinned at him.

Rodney looked at the tray indifferently and shrugged, "I already said I'm not hungry."

"Do I have to drag you back to see Keller again, McKay?"

"No, uh, I'll try again. Hang on a moment."

The screen blipped to indicate his search was finished and he swapped the display again. "Oh, a match in the database!" His voice was filled with unexpected glee at the result and he quickly read through the information.

Radek frowned in confusion, "Match for what?"

"Great, completely useless." Rodney leant back in his seat, raised his hands up and slapped them down onto his legs. "What is it with the Ancients, even Janus, leaving us absolutely no information about anything, as usual?! The people I saw when I phased out of time; Rorkan and Solian, all it says is 'Project 117.' That explains the seven and the eleven. But what about the stars, rings and Wraith?"

"What are you talking about?" Radek asked.

"I'm cross referencing all mentions of 'Project 117' in the rest of the database. I thought Solian's ramblings were a by-product of his insanity after being stalked by Rorkan, but maybe there was more meaning behind them after all."

John shared a puzzled look with Radek as Rodney studied the results of his new search. "Okay, only six mentions of the project. All of them just names and all with no more data than this 'Project 117.' This is hopeless! What was Janus doing with all these people?"

John frowned and said, "Solian? Can't you just phase again and ask him?"

"Oh yes, and while I'm at it should I find a way to charge a ZedPM using only my willpower?" Rodney snapped sarcastically, "Because I had so much control over this metal band choking me before."

"Well, you could really concentrate and then maybe…"

"No, Colonel, it won't work. You said so yourself that it was my gene playing up that made the device attach so quickly and securely."

Radek asked, "The others, do they have device also?"

Rodney's new sarcastic comment got stuck in the back of his throat and instead he muttered, "Yes."

John smirked and patted McKay's back, "Then it's not your gene. If these guys are Ancients…"

"They are," Rodney butted in.

"…then it's not your fault you can't get it off."

"Oh, that's reassuring. Not even real, live Ancients can remove it. I'm totally screwed aren't I?"

John waved him off and said, "Just think; probably the only way to remove the device is to decode that database. The only way to do that is to speak to Solian. And yes, you do need to phase in order to meet up with him again."

Radek muttered, "I wonder why that is…"

John kept saying his loop of logical thinking into Rodney's ear and McKay closed the laptop in front of him, picked it up and hugged it against his chest over the tac vest. He closed his eyes tightly in concentration…

--------------

Rodney felt the now familiar, but still horribly unsettling sensation of tingling spreading out across his whole body. He felt it move down his arms and legs into his fingers and toes as absolute silence descended once more.

He opened his eyes and looked around the lab. He was still sitting in his seat, but everyone else was frozen in place. He glanced down at his watch in curiosity and raised his eyebrows in surprise as it continued to tick. "Some kind of proximity effect?" He mumbled to himself.

He pushed his seat away from the desk clumsily to avoid hitting John or Radek and stumbled slightly as he stood. He accidentally toppled the chair and his eyes widened when it left contact with him and hung in the air halfway down to the ground. It defied gravity in the impossible tilt where it was now stuck.

Rodney slipped the laptop into the empty pocket on the back of his tac vest as he knew he would need both hands free to defend himself if he had another run in with Rorkan.

He suddenly felt terribly dizzy and grabbed the edge of the desk to steady himself as he swayed. He looked down at the food he had not eaten, but this did not feel like hunger and a new stabbing pain in his temples made him bend over and clutch his head as he whimpered.

Rodney breathed heavily through gritted teeth and found he could not think or remember what he was doing at all. He lost all awareness and succumb to the agony. He fell down onto the floor and continued to clutch his head as he rocked a little. Soon it was too much for Rodney and he became still as he passed out and his hands fell down limply.

-------------

A cold hand pawing at his face woke Rodney up. He muttered, "Get off me!" before he even opened his eyes.

"I thought Rorkan had you that last time. You need to move. He is coming again."

Rodney snapped his eyes open and looked up at Solian. "What? Why am I still here? I thought I'd phase back into normal time after collapsing."

Solian smiled at him humourlessly and said in a singsong fashion, "No, no. You will never get back to them now."

Rodney rubbed his temples as the headache had only slightly receded. It still hurt him, but made thinking just about possible. "You mean, if I keep this thing on for too long, I'll get stuck out of phase forever?"

Solian gazed down at him blankly and then shrugged, "The eleventh Wraith."

Rodney glanced at him in exasperation and rolled over to stand up. He steeled himself for the inevitable head rush which was to follow and would probably send him crashing back to the floor unconscious. He pushed himself up very slowly and closed his eyes as his head throbbed.

Rodney felt a hand gripping his shoulder and opened his tightly shut eyes to look at his unlikely saviour. Solian was grinning at him as he rested his hand on Rodney to keep him upright. McKay muttered, "Um, thanks."

Solian nodded and let go when Rodney had his balance back.

McKay looked down at his watch and opened his mouth in shock. It took him a few seconds to figure out what day it was. The clock had kept ticking all the while he had been out of phase. The proximity to his body and the band around his neck had drawn it with him into the place where he now was. It showed 10am, but the day after Rodney had collapsed.

"Oh, I've been out for more than twelve hours!" He panicked and patted down his tac vest and took out a powerbar. "No wonder I collapsed, I haven't eaten anything for nearly two days!"

Rodney hastily tore off the wrapper and then stopped and frowned, "I haven't drunk any water either, since… since the infirmary. But that was twenty-four hours ago and I'm not thirsty either."

Solian looked back at him sadly and said, "In the void; no sleep, no food, no rest. Only forever."

Rodney glanced at the powerbar in his hand and chewed off a piece anyway and swallowed. He felt no hunger and it was like eating cardboard to him. He frowned, but finished the bar with great difficulty and pulled a water bottle out of his tac vest. He swigged a few mouthfuls before replacing it back in the pocket.

He grimaced as he ate and thought about his predicament. He asked Solian, "No rest? Then why did I collapse?"

Solian shrugged and said, "Too long ago for me."

Rodney frowned, "How long _have_ you been here? Do you remember a man named Janus?"

Solian looked away at one of the walls where a scientist was frozen in the middle of a wild hand gesture with another person in front of him. He rolled the name around his mouth, "Janus. J-Janus? Oh… eleven seven!"

"So you _do_ remember something. That means you've been here for ten thousand years," Rodney remembered the frozen time and added, "at least…" He wanted to add, _"No wonder you and Rorkan are both crazy," _but he held his tongue.

Rodney unhooked the laptop on his back and kept a tight grip on it to keep it from phasing back into normal time. He opened it up and spun it around to show Solian. He leant the screen against his chest and curled his fingers under the keyboard to give Solian access. "We're having some trouble decoding some research Janus left behind. Think you could take a look at it for us?"

Solian narrowed his eyes suspiciously, but walked over, stood in front of McKay and peered down at the screen. He tapped a few of the keys experimentally and Rodney sighed in relief as the buttons depressed and responded to the other man's touch.

His typing sped up and he frowned at the screen while he worked. Rodney hoped he was decoding the data, but his upside down and obstructed view of the screen meant that he could not see exactly what Solian was doing.

He mumbled, "Wraith. Seven stars. Rings. Eleven," under his breath a few times and then suddenly stopped typing and looked at the door to the lab in fear.

Rodney followed his gaze and jumped a little when he saw Rorkan's leering face peering back at them. McKay said, "Oh, it's you again! I'm ready this time."

Rodney closed the laptop and slipped it back into the pocket on his tac vest. He unholstered his sidearm and pointed it at Rorkan who was waving the spike at him threateningly as his eyes danced with the flames of madness.

Rodney stood between Solian and Rorkan and called out in a squeaky voice, "Leave him alone!"

Rorkan advanced on McKay in a normal manner this time and Rodney was surprised as he walked rather than jumped unnervingly through space at him. He angled the tip of the spike at Rodney's chest and continued to move slowly forwards.

"Don't come any closer or I'll shoot you, I swear!" Rodney cried in panic at the approaching figure. He increased the pressure on the trigger and felt a sweat breaking out on his brow as his hands tremored slightly in fear.

Rorkan stopped in his tracks and narrowed his eyes as if calculating whether Rodney was going to carry out his threat. He decided not and dashed forwards. Rodney shouted and turned his face to the side at the same time as he fired.

Rorkan blinked out of existence for a fraction of a second and reappeared unharmed at Rodney's side. McKay yelped in shock and spun around to back away from Rorkan. He held the gun up and Solian muttered from the other side of the room, "Won't work. Won't work. Need a stick."

Rodney continued to step backwards closer to where Rorkan had been a moment ago. He suddenly felt a searing pain across the back of his arm and gritted his teeth. "What the hell was that?"

He kept his gun pointed at Rorkan as he advanced. He was probably thinking that he could win no matter what McKay did, so did not really bother to hurry. McKay turned his head slightly to see what had hurt him. It took him a few seconds to find it, but he eventually saw a tiny piece of metal floating in mid air. "Oh, my bullet!"

McKay quickly connected the unmoving bullet with Solian's ramblings, holstered his gun and drew the knife from his belt instead.

He muttered, "Where's Teyla when you need her? I'm useless at hand to hand."

Rorkan stopped for a moment and eyed the blade McKay was now brandishing. He tilted his head a little as if asking a question, then ran forwards at McKay with the spike held out in front of him.

Rodney rapidly staggered backwards and tried to spin around sideways to avoid the jabbing point of the weapon. He was only partially successful and the spike stabbed a hole in the side of his tac vest. He cried out and clutched his scraped side as Rorkan pulled the weapon out of the vest where it had become entangled.

McKay sent an attack Rorkan's way, but he quickly phased out and reappeared behind Rodney. He drew the spike up as he prepared to plunge it into the scientist's back.

McKay muttered, "That's not fair!" He spun around and caught a glimpse of the spike coming towards him. Rodney allowed his legs to crumple and he rolled out of the way in a move he had picked up during his limited training sessions with his teammates. As he went past Rorkan on the floor he slashed his knife across one of the man's shins.

Rorkan drew in a sharp breath, but uttered no other sound as his leg bled onto the dark rags that barely covered him. He aimed a savage kick at McKay, but it missed as Rodney rolled over onto all fours and stood up with a grunt of pain.

Rorkan bared his teeth at Rodney like an animal and phased again. He reappeared and disappeared many times around the lab and McKay continued to curl a hand against the cut on his side as he followed the man as best he could. He shook in fear and soon was so disorientated he expected to feel the spike lance through his body at any moment.

Rorkan seemed to be toying with him and Rodney's eyes settled on Sheppard as he stood frozen in time. He wished with all his might that John would unfreeze and help to defend him against the madman.

Rodney then noticed that Solian was gone. Whether he had the same phasing abilities as Rorkan or had just run out while McKay was fighting for his life, he did not know.

Rodney cried out as Rorkan appeared directly in front of him and flashed the spike down towards him again for a fatal blow.

The room suddenly tipped and spun around Rodney momentarily and sounds crashed down against him as they started again. There was a loud echoing gunshot bang as the bullet continued on its path when it unfroze in time. It slammed into some machinery on one side of the room in a shower of sparks.

A nearby chair finally obeyed gravity and fell over with a loud clatter.

Rodney continued to hold the bloody knife out in front of him and it visibly wavered in the air as his hand shook. He kept his arm across his abdomen and pressed his free hand firmly against his side as he gazed blearily around the room.

Everyone had stopped working and talking and they were all looking at him in shock and confusion, like he was a ghost. Only John came over to him and grasped his wrist as he took the knife.

He studied McKay's pale, sweaty and shocked face and heard the rapid pants of air Rodney was drawing in. He quickly tapped his radio and said, "Medical team to the science labs."

----------

TBC


	6. Gaining Control and Losing It

_A/N - Thanks for such lovely reviews (blush!) here's some more..._

**Chapter 6 – Gaining Control and Losing It**

In the science lab, John whispered his mantra into Rodney's ear, trying to get the scientist to focus and will himself out of phase. He muttered softly, "Phase out of time… decode the data… remove the device…"

He said the loop a few times and winced as he saw the tight collar around McKay's neck up close for the first time. It looked like it was barely giving the scientist enough leeway to breathe.

As John spoke, Rodney suddenly vanished and the chair he had been sitting on skipped impossibly in space and then fell onto the floor at the same time as a gunshot rang out.

There was silence in the lab as the scientists all stopped working at the loud and unexpected sound. The hush was only broken by the sounds of rapid and gasping breaths coming from near the door and John looked up to see Rodney standing in the open area of the lab.

Sheppard dashed over to him and took the red tinted knife he had grasped in his shaking hand. John thought Rodney was holding himself like he was hurt and he did not like the way McKay clutched his side so tightly.

He tapped his radio and called for a medical team.

Rodney had his mouth open and was panting like he had just run a mile. He blinked slowly at John, who rested a hand on his shoulder and steered him over to a chair.

The scientists were all watching to see what was happening to their boss. At the moment he was far more interesting to them than futilely staring at indecipherable lines of code.

John indicated for Rodney to sit and asked, "What happened, McKay?"

Rodney glanced at John blankly and gingerly lifted his hand away from his side. He frowned and grimaced at the small amount of blood on his fingers and pressed it more tightly against himself. Before he sat down, Rodney used his free hand to remove the laptop from his tac vest. He groaned and bent over at the motion and John grabbed his shoulders to steady him and forced him to sit.

Rodney held the computer in his lap and hunched forwards as he began to shake a little. John took the laptop and handed it to Radek who was nervously hovering nearby.

McKay kept a tight grip on the computer, but eventually let it go and muttered, "Make sure you unlink it from the network. Solian did something to it. I… I don't know what."

"I will look at it for you, Rodney. Do not worry."

Rodney brought his trembling hand up again to study the blood and John saw it this time. "McKay! What happened? Where are you hurt?"

Sheppard grabbed Rodney's shoulders tightly as he tilted a little in the seat. He carefully lowered him down to the floor and laid him down flat on his back. McKay said quietly, "Had a fight with Rorkan. He got me."

John saw that Rodney had pressed his hand firmly on his side again and grabbed his wrist to pull it away, "What the hell did I tell you about not fighting?" He had meant it in a friendly way, but his voice was sterner than he had planned and Rodney flinched and closed his eyes.

John unzipped Rodney's tac vest and soon found the gash across his right side. He pulled a bandage out of McKay's vest and pushed Rodney's shirt up so that he could press it down on the wound.

Radek knelt down close to McKay's head while John tried to stop the bleeding.

McKay winced and tensed up as John pressed his hand against the bandage more firmly. Rodney muttered, "Rorkan cheated. But I still got him."

"You mean he's dead?"

"No, but I'll have him next time."

John narrowed his eyes. "No, you won't, McKay. He could kill you next time."

Rodney furrowed his brow and scrunched up his face in pain and anguish. He said sadly, "It's getting harder to return to normal time. It feels like I'm slipping away every hour I spend with this thing strapped around my neck like an ever tightening noose. I also think my head's going to split open soon if this headache doesn't go away." He ended his speech in a deep sigh and bunched his hands into fists.

Radek shared a concerned look with John and then they both turned to look back down at McKay. Zelenka reassured his injured friend, "We will see what Solian did to the code. Hopefully it will be the answer to everything."

Rodney shivered but did not speak. This worried John even more when he did not hear a sarcastic comment or the usual pessimistic and morbid denial that anyone would be able to help him.

The medical team came into the room, led by Dr Keller. Her mouth opened in an 'oh' and she exclaimed, "Rodney! You've only been out of the infirmary for a few minutes!" She looked at John as her team took over from him and asked, "What happened?"

John waved his hand down at McKay's prone form, where the med team were wrapping the bandage around his abdomen and giving him oxygen. "He had another run in with someone out of phase with normal time. Thought he might try some heroics, but lost."

McKay pushed away the oxygen mask as the team lifted him up onto the gurney. "I did_ not_ lose! He jumped about all over the place, ugh…" John was smirking at Rodney's indignant face and the scientist took a few seconds to realise it was only a tease.

John was glad that McKay was more alert after being given the oxygen and took it as a good omen as he followed the gurney out of the lab.

---------------

"Oh, ow! Would you quit that?!" Rodney said angrily as he lay on his side on a bed in the infirmary while Dr Keller stitched the cut on his flank from Rorkan's spike. He had taken off his shirt and had his arm drawn up to give her access. He bunched his hand into the pillow as an outlet for the pain.

Jennifer pursed her lips and carried on anyway.

John was standing nearby keeping a watchful eye over his charge and said quietly, "McKay, why don't you let the lovely Doctor help you?"

Rodney scowled and twitched as Jennifer continued her needlework on his skin. "Are you even using any anaesthetic? It feels like you're stabbing knitting needles into me!"

Jennifer frowned and shook her head in exasperation, while John smirked at them. She continued to sew together the cut and Rodney flinched again and nearly made her pull the last stitch. "Rodney! You _must_ try to keep still. This is delicate work."

John smiled at the fun and said, "Don't want you falling apart on us now do we, McKay?"

"Oh, ha, ha…Ow! That hurts!"

Jennifer glared down at him and paused with the needle poised above his side. "Rodney, if I give you any more anaesthetic, it'll knock you out. With your headache, that's not a good idea. You might not wake up again."

Rodney's expression softened a little and he looked down sadly at the pillow next to him. "I know. I didn't think I'd ever get back here after the last phase. I was there for over twelve hours."

John baulked, "That moment I saw was twelve _hours_ for you!? What did you do in all that time?"

Rodney spoke while Jennifer resumed her work. It seemed to distract him and he stopped laying into her. "Well, you know; the usual stuff you'd think of doing when no-one else can see you." He closed his eyes in mock dreaminess and smiled.

John frowned in confusion and rolled his eyes.

Jennifer finished off the stitches and grabbed a roll of gauze. She said, "Okay, all done. If you sit up, I'll wrap this around you to keep it clean."

Rodney blinked his eyes open and looked up at her, "What, that's it? I thought it was going to take hours."

John looked incredulous while Jennifer shook her head, "You were lucky, the cut was very shallow. Hopefully it won't get infected, but I want you back here in a few hours so that we can check it."

John raised his eyebrows at them. "That's a few in your timeline, McKay."

Jennifer helped Rodney to sit up with a hand on his back and started rolling the bandage around his abdomen. She paused for a moment and looked up at him as he sat there without his shirt on.

Rodney gazed at her suspiciously and snapped, "What?"

Jennifer shook her head and quickly refocused her attention on the task of bandaging his midsection. "Nothing."

John rolled his eyes again so that they did not see and looked around the infirmary as though he was pretending not to be there.

-----------

A few minutes later, John and Rodney were walking slowly back to the lab to check up on Radek's progress with the laptop. John thought Rodney was beginning to look quite ill. His face was pale and drawn and his features were in a constant grimace. His mouth turned down sharply as he looked at the ground and studied his feet.

John patted his back as they walked and McKay winced and wrapped his arm across himself over the cut which was now sealed and hidden under his clothes. He had the tac vest on again and John had given him a clean knife.

"So, Rodney, any luck controlling the time phasing thing yet?"

Rodney glanced at him and mumbled, "Not really. I think that last time was a fluke and then my mind made the device cooperate just as I was about to be stabbed in the chest, which is reassuring."

"Didn't stop you from getting a nasty scrape though."

Rodney shivered and lifted his hand up to the metal against his throat. He frowned and lowered his arm down again. "Would be quite interesting if I could learn to control it. Shame about the crazy people."

John raised his eyebrows, "Just imagine all the things you could do…"

Rodney sighed and said, "It's a bit limiting though, as I can't move anything when time's frozen and the speeding up thing is just plain disturbing."

"This Rorkan guy, you said he cheated and that's how he cut you. How did he do it?"

"Don't know. He seems to be able to double freeze time somehow." John gave him a confused look so Rodney elaborated, "It was frozen for me, but then he jumped about, so must be able to create a second layer of frozen time for that purpose."

"Weird," John said as they stepped out of the transporter into the corridor leading to the lab. He smirked and asked, "Hey, Rodney, if you _really_ concentrated maybe you could triple freeze time on his ass?"

There was no reply and John stopped walking and looked around. McKay was gone. "Uh, Rodney?" He unholstered his sidearm and held it ready.

There was a loud clatter behind him and he spun around to see an ammo clip on the floor. He sighed and raised an eyebrow. Suddenly a force shoved him in the small of his back and he stumbled forwards. He turned around again and frowned at the empty corridor. "Rodney, this isn't funny!"

McKay reappeared in front of him and John had to restrain himself not to shoot him in shock. He was smiling, but his expression faltered and he reached up a shaking hand and held his head. "Oh, that's not so good."

John shook his head, "Don't do that again, McKay!"

Rodney shrugged, "Just practising. Seems like I've got it down now. I have one more theory though. Throw your knife."

"What?!"

Rodney quickly lifted his hands in surrender and widened his eyes, "Well, obviously not at me!"

John turned around and unsheathed the blade from his belt. He made sure the corridor was completely clear, drew the knife back and threw it straight and true towards a nearby wall. As the blade flew through the air it suddenly changed course as though it had hit an invisible barrier and hit the wall quite a distance away from where John had been aiming.

Rodney reappeared next to him and said a little breathlessly, "I stopped time as you tossed it. Pushed it a little, but it didn't move, it seems that impacts when time is frozen are felt more acutely when it unfreezes for you. I then sped time up to stay out of phase and here I am."

John looked impressed and retrieved his knife from the floor. He also grabbed the fallen ammo clip and handed it to Rodney. "That would be quite handy on a mission if we all had those things and could get rid of the headache and passing out issues."

Rodney smiled, but then John's face suddenly hardened and McKay's expression fell in worry. Sheppard asked softly and almost dangerously, "Have you slept at all since it latched on? Or eaten anything?"

Rodney muttered, "Um…"

John saw the hesitation and took McKay's upper arm in a firm grasp, wishing he could anchor the scientist in normal time through the contact.

Rodney looked alarmed and shrugged off the grip violently until John had to let go for fear of bruising him. He cried, "Don't touch me! It could be dangerous!"

John continued a little louder, "Honestly, Rodney, if I were you I'd be spending every moment trying to figure out how to get that thing off me and not playing pranks. It could kill you, did you even think of that?" John's voice rose as his concern turned into anger at his own helplessness to defend his friend and frustration at McKay's apparent disregard for his own physical and mental health.

Rodney said sadly, "Do you really think so? I mean the other two I've seen, although not exactly the perfect cover examples for this month's edition of 'Sane Monthly,' they're still alive."

John frowned at him angrily and said hotly, "_Are_ they alive? Truly?"

Rodney furrowed his brow and grimaced. John waved his hand and said to him, "Well, you don't know do you? So maybe you need to carry on working instead of messing around."

Rodney clenched his teeth and looked hurt almost as though John had struck him. He spun around and stalked off up the corridor away from Sheppard as fast as he could.

John suddenly had a thought. He caught up with McKay and grabbed his shoulder firmly to stop him in his tracks. "How long?"

"What?"

"How long were you out of phase that time?"

Rodney looked a little uncomfortable and tried to brush him off, "Not that long."

John noticed that Rodney had not met his eyes as he spoke so he grabbed the scientist's wrist. McKay struggled to release the grasp as John forced his sleeve up and looked at his watch. "Two days!"

Rodney grimaced as he was found out and said, "It took me a little longer to get used to it than I had intended!"

"And you haven't you even eaten anything in all that time?!"

"No, I haven't." John opened his mouth to speak, but Rodney quickly kept going, "And before you say anything else, I didn't see any sign of Solian or Rorkan. Oh, and my cut's healed up a bit now, thanks for asking. It only hurts like a sharp knife is constantly scratching me as opposed to a thousand red hot pokers jabbed under my skin."

John scolded him, "If you hadn't been fooling around, you could've got some more painkillers from Keller."

Rodney sighed sadly and muttered, "I know, but I got stuck again. I told you before; it's getting harder to drag myself back to real time, even with the control I now have. That's not the only thing either." He swallowed and looked away from John in fear. "_You_ disappeared for a while when I was out of phase. That's not happened before. The city was still here, albeit in an unsteady form, but you were gone."

--------------

TBC


	7. The Never Ending Nightmare

**Chapter 7 – The Never Ending Nightmare**

"I disappeared? How?" John asked as he continued to walk along the corridor with Rodney.

McKay could feel his heart pounding in fright over what he had just said. Somehow, the revelation to his friend had suddenly made the situation more real to him. He rubbed his side absently and winced at the pulling pain from the stitches as he moved.

At length he replied, "I don't know. I can't believe I was out for two days!"

John's eyes widened and he glanced across at Rodney, "Out? You mean you did sleep after all?"

Rodney reached up and rubbed his temples with his eyes narrowed, "Um, not really sleep, no. I, uh, passed out again."

"We've seriously got to get that thing off you. Come on, let's hurry this up."

Rodney was surprised that John had not shouted at him again and was now showing concern after his recent telling off. They quickly walked the rest of the way to the lab in a tense, but once again friendly, silence.

As they stepped into the lab, Rodney was shocked and slightly touched by the fact that all the scientists were still in there working almost tirelessly to try and help him. It was late, but time was now meaningless to McKay and he quietly asked Sheppard, "What time is it anyway?"

"11pm."

Rodney nodded and adjusted his watch back with a soft sigh.

Radek looked harassed and on edge as he came over to the two men. He turned to Rodney and smiled bravely as he asked, "How are you?"

McKay looked down and did not say anything. He drew in a quick breath as his head throbbed again painfully.

John had to answer, "He's all stitched up, but he's still complaining so probably fine for the moment."

Rodney grimaced and clutched the top of his head tightly. Radek's face fell and he walked over to his side. He put a friendly hand on McKay's back and led him over to the chair next to the laptop he had been working on.

Rodney sat down heavily and huffed out a breath. He slowly lowered his hand down from his head and stared at the screen.

John kept his distance and waited by the door. He was still within earshot, but seemed to have decided to leave it to the scientists for now. He tapped his radio and spoke to someone under his breath so that no-one else in the lab heard him.

"Found anything?" Rodney asked through gritted teeth.

Radek spoke sadly, "Only a few things. You can have a look. This is the laptop you brought back with you. Some of the files are partially decoded."

Rodney typed through the screens and willed his assaulted mind to take in some of the data as his eyes tracked across the screen. He sighed angrily and set his lips in a thin line. "Is that it? I'm never going to get this thing off me am I?"

Radek looked a little hurt and pulled the laptop out of reach of Rodney's fingers. He typed a few keys and then spun it around to show McKay. "There is more. You did not see it properly."

Rodney furrowed his brow as he saw a gate address and a schematic for a modified scanner flashing across the screen. "Oh, do you think…"

"Yes, whatever is going on with you, the solution is probably on the planet where this gate leads. According to Ancient Database, it was a Wraith outpost ten thousand years ago."

"And the scanner?"

"You were gone for a while, so I sent someone down to Janus' lab to have a look around."

Rodney was horrified that anyone was going anywhere near the lab after what had happened to him.

Radek walked over to the other side of the desk and grabbed an ordinary looking hand scanner. Rodney had not even given it a second glance and as Radek came over to him he said, "Janus had already made that one, huh?"

Radek pushed his glasses up with his free hand as he studied to small device. "Well, we found it in the lab, but have no idea what it does yet, if anything."

Over by the door, someone handed something to John. He nodded and thanked them under his breath before they left the room. Zelenka and McKay did not see this as they were both intently studying the scanner.

Rodney stood up and frowned at the device Radek was wielding in his palm. "Maybe it isn't affected by the interference and can scan me?"

John was already walking over to them, but Zelenka beckoned him over needlessly anyway. Sheppard raised his eyebrows and handed a small packet to Rodney as he passed. He said, "Painkillers from Keller, for the headache I know you're trying to hide."

Rodney grimaced, but took a couple of the pills with some water from the bottle in his tac vest.

John walked over and stood next to Zelenka as Rodney tucked the rest of the tablets into a pocket on his vest.

John asked, "Want me to activate that for you? See if we can find out anything we don't already know about McKay?"

Rodney glared at him suspiciously and folded his arms over his chest protectively, "What's _that_ supposed to mean?"

John raised his eyebrows, but did not grace McKay with an answer. He took the scanner from Radek and said, "Hold still."

Rodney lowered his arms to his sides as he stood a short distance away from the table. He felt a little afraid in anticipation of what the scanner may reveal.

John stood directly in front of Rodney and lifted the blank screen up at him. He activated it and tracked it from the scientist's head down to his neck.

Rodney's headache quickly flared to an unbearable level; to him it felt like his temples were suddenly being compressed in a vice. He cried out and flinched violently. He stumbled backwards and lost his footing as his coordination failed him in the haze of pain. John frowned at the scanner as readings were picked up and recorded onto the device.

Rodney landed heavily and curled up into a tight ball as he shivered and held his head. He opened his bloodshot eyes to look around at the faces all peering down at him in concern. He sniffed as blood tracked down his face from his nose and closed his eyes again as he got weaker and the pain began to recede slightly.

John quickly deactivated the scanner and handed it back to Radek when he saw the affect it was having on McKay. He ran over to the scientist who was panting shallow breaths and had his eyes tightly closed. John crouched down and held onto Rodney's shoulders to try and stop the tremors wracking the scientist's body.

He said in alarm, "Rodney? I'm sorry! I didn't know it was going to do that!"

McKay grunted and whispered harshly under his breath, "Drills. Pneumatic drills..."

John relaxed his grip as Rodney's shaking slowed and then stopped and his breathing evened out a little. McKay reached up a hand and wiped at his bloody nose. He grimaced when he opened his eyes and gazed at the back of his hand.

"Can you get up?"

Rodney lifted up one of his hands and John grasped it and pulled him upright. He felt a little light-headed from his recent ordeal and swayed a little. He wondered what data the scanner had been able to gather. "Maybe I'll be alright if I work over here?" He pointed to the far side of the room away from where Zelenka had deposited the offending device on one of the desks. "I'll work on the rest of the code while you keep that thing away from me."

Radek shrugged, "Okay, as long as you do not collapse once more."

John smirked, "Wouldn't be much point in carrying on if you flake out again, McKay."

Rodney grimaced as he rubbed the remaining blood from his face with a tissue he had retrieved from his pocket.

John stayed with Radek as McKay carried the unnetworked laptop over and shoved a scientist out of his seat as far away from them at possible. He hoped the proximity was what had affected him so badly.

He started to look over the partially decoded database and noticed that some of the files were close to complete reconstruction. Solian had made fast work out of the decryption which had had Rodney and everyone else stumped for such a long time. There seemed to be fewer layers of code to get through before the data would finally be his.

He sighed and started working on the first line, looking for patterns. After a few minutes he had already worked through the top layer of the remaining encryption. The data was still unreadable, but he smiled at the achievement and silently congratulated himself at his brilliance as he had a crack at the next layer.

He suddenly found that his face was feeling hotter and his breathing was becoming more difficult. He looked across the room and choked slightly as he saw John and Radek frowning down at the active scanner. He tried to call out to them but his voice got stuck in his throat in a strangled gasp.

He screwed up his face tightly and wheezed through his narrowing airway. With difficulty, he reached up his worryingly heavy arms and felt the metal band around his neck. It had a slight give in it and bent under his touch. He panicked as he felt that it was embedded in his skin and becoming tighter as it constricted his breathing and the arteries supplying his brain.

Rodney staggered out of the chair and kept one hand on his throat as he lowered the other one down and placed it over his hitching chest as he laboured to inhale a noisy and rattling breath.

He sensed, rather than saw people dashing towards him as the world around him wavered and crashed. All colour leeched out of everything in sight as people and objects vanished out of existence to him. He fell forwards and landed heavily on something sharp in one of the pockets of his tac vest. It slammed into his ribs, but he was unconscious before the pain registered in his blood and oxygen deprived mind.

----------

As Rodney became aware the first thing he noticed was a whooshing sound. The noise was constant and never paused or faltered. He cracked his eyes open and took one look at his surroundings as he lay on the floor before he covered his face and muttered, "This isn't happening."

Rodney sucked in a few deep breaths and winced at his sore throat and what felt like at least one cracked rib. He tried to calm his nerves and lowered his hands again after a few minutes. He hoped and prayed that things would be back to normal when he had gathered enough courage to look at his surroundings. Although, he seriously doubted they would be as he could not close his ears to the sound of the howling winds all around him.

He took a chance and opened his eyes. His breathing sped up again in fright at the rippling walls and the strange and constant swishing noise. He glanced with wide and fearful eyes at his new location.

Rodney wondered whether this existence would eventually become his eternal fate if he could not find a way to release the loop of chain around his neck as it tried to permanently bind him to the place he was now in.

He reasoned that lying on the floor was not really doing anything to help his situation, so he steeled himself and stood up. He hugged one arm around his chest and touched his throat to inspect the damage. He shuddered a little as his fingertips awoke the bruising encircling his neck, but the band had loosened enough so that he could breathe.

Rodney walked out of what appeared to be a twisted version of the science lab he was standing in before his collapse and into the corridor. He glanced up and down the hallway and narrowed his eyes at the walls which were shifting unsteadily all around him. It was almost like water was flowing over them in several directions at once, distorting his vision and what the city should look like.

He stepped up to the wall and cautiously lifted up a shaking hand towards the surface. The noise all around him continued to blast against his ears although he could not localise the source and he felt no breeze against his skin.

He hesitated for a moment as his fingertips reached out to the rippling wall, but then shrugged and muttered, "Things can't really get much worse…" and touched the surface.

Rodney frowned in confusion as his hand connected with the normal and perfectly solid metal. He closed his eyes and traced his fingers over the surface, but it was as smooth as it should be and he felt no rippling sensation on his skin as his eyes had shown him.

After a few seconds, he lifted his hand away. His other arm was still wrapped around his ribcage and every breath reminded him of the damage.

He muttered under his breath as he slowly walked without any purpose up the hallway, "This is one of the circles of hell." He cursed himself that he could not remember which one. "Possibly the second…"

He suddenly stopped in his tracks as he wondered if it would be possible to die while he was out of phase. He grimaced as he reasoned that all the pain and blood was very real to him so probably.

He thought of his team and the other scientists. He even thought of Radek and furrowed his brow in realisation, "Oh, oh! And they'd never find out what happened or ever find me!"

He leant his back up against a visibly moving, but physically stable wall and closed his eyes in sorrow.

"Dr Rodney McKay? Um, Dr Rodney McKay?"

He started and winced as a timid voice broke through the gales blowing nothing at him in the timeless place. He slowly opened his eyes and saw Solian standing in front of him, peering at his face in concern.

Rodney kicked himself for letting his guard down. He had been lucky it was only a voice and not a spike that had shaken him out of his reverie.

Solian smiled at him more warmly than McKay had ever seen and he could not help returning the expression a little incredulously.

Solian said, "Thought you had gone."

"Yes, it has been a while hasn't it?" Rodney smirked. "I missed this place so much. Although, I don't think much of the décor now that I can see it properly."

Solian frowned in confusion at the comment and then pointed at McKay's neck, "Hurt."

Rodney automatically reached up and pressed his neck gently and said, "That and the more than likely broken ribs which will probably puncture my lungs soon."

"Rorkan?" Solian asked in alarm with his eyes wide.

"No, just me falling over again and one of Janus' old toys."

Solian gazed at him blankly and Rodney sighed as he pushed himself away from the wall and stood up straight.

He suddenly snapped his fingers a few times and Solian flinched backwards a little at the gesture. McKay did not notice and pulled a pad of paper and a pen out of his tac vest. He turned around and scrawled the gate symbols from Janus' data and held it out so that Solian could see it.

He spoke quickly, "I don't know how much time I have here during this phase. We think the answer is on this planet somewhere. Do you recognize the address or have any more information for us?"

Solian frowned down at the messy dots and lines and mumbled, "Seven stars. Eleven…"

"…Wraith. Yes, I know. It's a Wraith outpost or at least it was ten thousand years ago in the normal plane of time."

"Do not remember."

Rodney sighed in frustration and said, "That's a shame."

Solian suddenly tensed up and whispered, "Rorkan comes."

"What? Does he follow you around or something? How have you survived all this time?"

Solian glared back at him and muttered, "He knows me. He will know you too."

McKay's eyes widened as he misunderstood, "I sincerely hope not!"

They both spun around and watched as Rorkan ran towards them. The corridor all around him rippled in his wake and then reformed back to how it had been before. Rodney glared at the approaching man intensely and drew his knife forwards.

He felt a bubble of fear in his throat and tried to swallow it before he choked. Solian lifted his hand up and offered it to Rodney. McKay narrowed his eyes, first at the hand and then at Solian's eager and beckoning face. He sighed and took hold of the other man's hand.

The corridor stopped moving suddenly and Rorkan was frozen in his tracks mid stride with the spike he ever carried ready to strike at either of the men in his path. The colours were washed out to a bright whiteness and Rodney heard a voice next to him say, "I survived."

McKay's face was bathed in the reflected glow of the white world around him as Solian maintained his grasp tightly. He kept Rodney with him in the second layer of time he had created to save them both from Rorkan.

Rodney sheathed his knife as he turned to look incredulously at Solian's bright and grinning face. Solian motioned with his free hand at Rorkan and mumbled, "He does it too, but not as well."

Rodney felt his temper flaring and snapped angrily, "Oh, so you help me now! What about earlier when he stabbed me? He was just about to kill me and you left me alone!"

Solian looked away sadly and muttered, "Did not know you. Thought you were also to kill me."

Rodney continued to glare at him and Solian glanced back up at him in hope, but his face soon fell again at the scathing look Rodney gave him. He whispered, "Come…"

Rodney did not have time to ask as he felt a savage tug on his hand. The bright walls around him spun dizzying as Solian pulled him along through time, away from the corridor and away from Rorkan who remained frozen in his act of violence. Flashes of lights and blurry visions of walls flowing in darkness passed across Rodney's sightline and he had to close his eyes to keep the nausea down.

He felt a new sensation suffusing his whole being, a sense of unreality as if nothing had ever existed and nothing ever would. He tried to nail down the feeling in the hope of recalling it if he ever needed to learn how to control the layers of time on his own.

McKay opened his eyes as he finally managed to tear his hand out of Solian's painfully tight grasp. He held his head as the pain flared again and his vision of the white and rippling halls of Atlantis darkened. He flew across the corridor as he was wrenched out of the timeless place and slammed into the wall. He staggered slightly before he recovered and straightened up.

He kept his eyes closed for a few seconds as the flashing lights continued as though they had been burned into his eyelids. He felt light-headed and his breathing was too fast in fright over Solian's actions and the shock to his system of the multiple time phasing he had just experienced for the first time.

He opened his eyes but was terribly disorientated, as there were no windows and no people about in the empty corridor. He wondered whether he was still frozen in time or whether it had gone back to how it was originally.

He pulled an ammo clip out of his tac vest and threw it towards the opposite wall. It did not stop in mid air and landed with a loud and normal sounding clatter.

Rodney sighed in relief and then another horrible thought came to him. He very reluctantly pulled back his sleeve and looked at his watch.

He glanced at the watch for a moment and his eyes widened. He looked up for a second before he did a double take of the offending chronometer. He muttered in shock, "Three weeks!"

He hoped with all his might that the time distortion had not meant as much time had passed for everyone else on Atlantis, but he needed to be sure.

He walked rapidly, almost breaking into a run, up the silent corridor towards the science lab.

Before he got there the corridor rippled and shifted and he shouted uselessly into the void, "Not again!" as he was once more knocked out of phase.

It was so close to the last shift, he thought it might be permanent this time with no hope of ever returning or seeing his friends or any other humans from Earth ever again.

Rodney cried out in despair and had to force himself to swallow a hysterical laugh down his throat. He sobbed in frustration at the rippling walls once again surrounding him. They mercilessly taunted him with an eternity of being trapped in the prison he had now entered.

----------

TBC


	8. Missing In Action

**Chapter 8 – Missing in Action**

John tightly gripped the edges of the podium as he looked around at the crowd of people in front of him. Many were gazing down at the ground or their hands, but some met his eyes.

He steeled himself and willed his strength to his voice, so that it would not waver or shake as he started to speak into the microphone.

"Dr Rodney McKay was a difficult man to get along with. Self admittedly petty, arrogant and bad with people."

The people who had not been looking at John were now gazing at him in shock. Their wide and questioning eyes meeting his.

John was glad for the reaction; it was certainly much better than the stunned shock over what had happened. He forced himself to carry on, knowing that he still had a lot he needed to say.

"It's been over a month since he disappeared and as difficult as it is for me to admit; I think that it's time we laid aside our hope and started to grieve. He is now lost to us. We will never know what happened to him or where he is. He could be alive and trapped or he may even be dead.

"I believe that not knowing where he is or exactly what happened to him should be a source of comfort for us. He may be gone forever. Then again he could come back to us tomorrow."

The silence in the hall was only broken by quiet shuffling sounds and sighing. The air felt heavy to John, like it was compressing him inwards and making it hard to breathe.

The scientists sat huddled closely together, using their collective respect of the one for whom they were holding the memorial service as a source of strength. John thought it looked like everyone on Atlantis had turned up and all the chairs they had laid out were occupied. Latecomers were standing at the back of the room.

John spotted Dr Zelenka in the centre of the largest concentration of civilians. He was avidly glaring at the back of the person's head in front of him. John thought that out of all the scientists, due to Radek's close working relationship with Rodney, he would probably be the one most affected by his disappearance.

The scientist was hiding his feelings well, but John reasoned that Radek probably felt anger at himself for not being able to do more to get Rodney back. John thought maybe he should be feeling angry with Zelenka too for not doing anything to help, but he did not seem to be able to feel anything at all these days. Not anymore. His loss had left a numb and empty Rodney McKay-sized hole somewhere inside him, that he knew would never be filled by anyone else ever again.

"When Rodney came to Atlantis he was abrasive and rude and quite frankly I was unsure what to make of him at first. But he quickly proved that actions speak louder than words with his acts of selfless heroism and the way he always managed to save our lives at the eleventh hour; even when all hope seemed to be lost.

"We always pushed Rodney and weighed down the burden of responsibility on his shoulders so heavily that it would've broken a lesser man long ago. We pushed him to achieve the impossible and he always delivered. I firmly believe his reputation for arrogance was rightly deserved and justified."

"I'd like to think that he'd finally found a home here among friends." John gestured with one of his hands around at all the people gathered. He then lowered it to grip the podium again.

"It took a while, but McKay finally let his guard down a little when he realised that he _was_ liked despite his tendency towards stubbornness and irritability.

"In the years he spent here he really began to open up to the people around him; forging relationships he never knew or believed he could." John briefly glanced at Jennifer in the front row and she gave him a brave but very small smile in acknowledgment before looking away once more.

"It is with great sadness that Rodney McKay's life has come to this and that there can be no closure."

John looked at Jennifer again and furrowed his brow as she looked down and he saw tears had now started to track silently down her cheeks. Teyla had her arm around Jennifer's shoulders and her own face was set in a hard line of stoicism which looked almost stern and angry to John.

Ronon was gazing off to the side with a neutral expression. As John paused in his speech for a few seconds and gathered his thoughts he thought he could see a flicker of emotion somewhere behind the Satedan's eyes.

"Rodney was a man who ruffled feathers and upset people. But he ultimately brought out the best in everyone and only ever thought about the greater good. His heart was always in the right place.

"Rodney was an honest man, perhaps a little too much at times, but he never hid anything from us. He was a man unafraid to tell it like it is. When it came down to it you always knew where you stood with McKay and that is a quality worthy of praise for everyone on this expedition."

John gazed down at his hands still gripping the podium before him. He saw the whiteness of his knuckles and felt an ache in the tiny muscles of his fingers. He released a deep sigh away from the microphone and suddenly snapped his head up to meet the shining eyes of the crowd as they all looked at him in sympathy and sadness.

John steeled himself and willed his heart not to break as he announced loudly, "To Rodney McKay, a trying man, but an honest and brave one and the best friend I ever had."

Teyla squeezed Jennifer's shoulders tightly with her arm to comfort her in understanding. Jennifer's face was shining with tears and she blinked slowly. John thought she looked utterly lost like the one she cried for and he knew that she might very well be inconsolable in her loss.

A small voice suddenly spoke from the back of the room and John looked over the heads of the people in front of him to find its origin.

"J-J-John?" The voice stammered.

All the people in the room swivelled in their chairs, except for Jennifer who was hunched over with both hands covering her face, while Teyla rubbed her back and pursed her lips.

"Wh-what's going on?" The voice asked in a deeply hurt tone.

There was a collective intake of breath from the gathered crowd and John also gasped in shock. For at the back of the room, Rodney McKay himself had just burst into his own memorial service. He looked at the gathered crowd with wide eyes before returning his attention to John on the podium.

Sheppard breathed, "McKay…"

"What's going on?" Rodney asked again a little louder.

----------

John woke up with a start like he had heard the voice out loud, shouted into his ear while he slept.

He lay back on his pillow with a tired and shaky sigh. Now he knew for sure; McKay was alive they just could not see him. It felt like his spirit was in the room, hidden but reaching out to the people of Atlantis as he stayed out of phase with normal time; lost somewhere in the void.

An empty coffin and a silent photo the only reminders that he was still missing. John would never give up hope and let it come down to that. He could still taste the salty tears and feel the quiet sadness of the people in the hall in the dream like they had been real.

He looked around in the dark of his quarters, not seeing anything with his eyes, but he could feel a presence. Whether it was because of the dream and he was somehow still at the memorial service as a little of it was leeching into reality, he was unsure.

It had only been a week since McKay had disappeared without a trace. In the darkness, John's words from the lab just before Rodney vanished and the last time he had been with the scientist echoed in his mind. _"Wouldn't be much point in carrying on if you flake out again, McKay."_

He knew he had failed Rodney. He blamed himself for taunting his friend with the device which had resulted in stranding him, who knew where, possibly forever.

John thought that it was far too soon for a memorial service. He believed that Rodney was still out there somewhere, but simply could not ask for their help.

How long would they wait before starting to abandon hope? Would they ever hold a memorial service? It would be the ultimate resignation that they had given up on Rodney and abandoned him to his fate. Or keep on searching indefinitely?

They were difficult and painful questions for John, but necessary ones. The other people on the base had started to rally around him during the day as their missing chief scientist remained lost to them. He also knew that everyone would be looking to him to make the final decision, as Rodney's friend, of when they should stop looking for him and give up on trying to find a solution.

Jeannie was still thousands of light years away on Earth. John had left Woolsey to tell her about her brother's disappearance and that they were all doing everything in their power to bring him back. John knew that he should have done it himself, but that would have made the situation far too real for him and he could not bring himself to do it. If they ever did give up on McKay, he would definitely make _that_ call.

Maybe it would have been better for Rodney to be very definitely and utterly dead. For there to be a body or some kind of proof of his passing. But there was nothing. No word at all and the uncertainty was driving everyone mad.

The idea that he may be trapped in some kind of hellish alternate reality only intensified the emotions over his mysterious disappearance. Many people had already shown signs of strain under the ever wearing and present burden of the loss of their Chief Science Officer.

The city just did not feel the same without McKay. It was like there was something wrong with the whole picture, but nobody could quite put their finger on it. People from the expedition had died before, but never had _everyone_ been affected so profoundly.

John pressed the backs of his hands against his eyes until he saw bright lights swirling in the darkness.

He had tried to carry on as normal and rescue some of the team dynamic in a desperate effort to restore some of what he had lost, but it was hopeless. The sarcastic replies were missing, which left a gaping hole in John and a sense that the world was not right without it.

His own sarcasm went over the heads of everyone with no reply or scathing comment in echo. The silence was unsettling and felt just plain wrong to him. Teyla and Ronon did not understand the Earth references and Teyla always took everything at face value in absolute seriousness.

John grimaced as his thoughts spun around and settled back on McKay and the circumstances of his disappearance.

He could be trapped in a place where a single second of real time could stretch out forever. A million eternities could already have gone by for McKay while they were helpless to rescue him. If they ever managed to get him back; would he be the same again or mad through loneliness like the people he said he had met?

In the silence of the darkness, John swore a solemn vow to himself. He was not ready to give up on McKay yet and would get him back no matter what it took.

He knew he needed to speak to Jennifer and felt guilty that he had not done so already. If anyone else could understand his acute grief and frustration, she would. They both shared a bond with McKay, one deeper than friendship.

Due to his unique trip into an alternate future, John knew that Jennifer felt something more, or at least she would eventually come to feel it even if she did not now. The timeline had been very different, but he knew that some things were happening regardless.

John had taken his team to the planet in Janus' database. He remembered it like he was still there. The sharpness of the cold winds and the crushing grief and hopelessness he had felt as they wandered around looking for any clues as to why it had been mentioned in the database.

There was nothing there. Not even any signs that it had been a Wraith outpost. There had been a few scattered villages near the Gate, but no power sources or structures which looked like Ancient labs or research facilities. He had even taken a Jumper out and scanned the entire planet for hours on end looking for something, anything that would provide some answers.

---------

John tossed and turned for what felt like hours stretching out into infinity as he tried to get back to sleep. He sighed and thumped down heavily on his back and looked up at the ceiling.

He lay like that for a very long time just staring and staring into the darkness. As he was considering rolling over onto his side for another attempt at falling asleep, the intercom in his room activated.

_"Dr Zelenka to Colonel Sheppard."_

John quickly reached across to the table by his bed and clipped his headset on. "This is Sheppard, go ahead."

"_You could not sleep either Colonel?"_

John smiled a little, "Guilty as charged."

"_I know; it is difficult. Especially since…"_ Radek's voice trailed off before he carried on, _"I have found something. If you are able, please come to the lab."_

John nearly fell out of his bed in his haste to stand up. His efforts to find a comfortable position had left the covers impossibly tangled in his legs and he kicked them savagely as he replied, "I'm on my way."

---------

John ran down the corridor on his way to the science lab. Just before he reached the door, he stopped and took a couple of deep breaths to compose himself.

Satisfied that he now could speak if necessary, he walked through the door.

Radek was hunched over a laptop with his elbow on the table and his head resting in one of his hands. His glasses were slightly askew, but his face was shining in eagerness even through the tired lines.

"So Radek, what's so important at this unearthly hour of 4am? Shouldn't you be asleep like everyone else?"

Zelenka jumped at John's voice and lifted his head up as he lowered his arm. "I cannot sleep. I am not going to give up on Rodney until we are sure about what happened to him."

John felt the same way, but did not like the idea of Radek working himself to death. He opened his mouth to speak, but Zelenka beat him to it and held up a finger in a pose reminiscent of another scientist who had once hounded and berated his colleagues in the very same area where they were.

"Do not speak. I will keep on working and waiting until I am convinced there is nothing more I can do."

John nodded in understanding and asked, "So what did you find?"

Radek reached into his pocket and drew out an ammo clip. He very significantly placed it in the centre of the table and stared at it as he spoke. "I heard a noise in the corridor. It is unusual this late at night, so I went to investigate. I found that on the floor," he gestured at the ammo.

He spun around back to the laptop, "I need you to watch this. I need to be sure of what I saw."

John frowned in confusion as he peered over Radek's shoulder at the screen. The scientist had a video feed from the corridor on the screen and hit play before leaning back in his seat and folding his arms.

Nothing happened for a long time and John was considering telling Radek in sarcasm that all the late nights had finally driven him crazy. Suddenly a man appeared out of thin air in the corridor. His face was unmistakable.

"Rodney?" John asked.

Radek nodded as they continued to watch and saw McKay throwing the ammo across the corridor. The man on the screen glanced down at his watch and they saw his body visibly jump in shock and then tense up, _"Three weeks?!"_

Rodney looked up and started to walk along the corridor. As he approached the lab, his image wavered and then he vanished from the video.

John felt the fire of hope in his heart rekindle at what he had just witnessed and he grinned. He now had the proof he needed that Rodney was still alive and not giving up as he tried to find his way back to them.

Radek paused the video and turned to John, "You remember what I told you about the radiation we saw with the scanner?"

"Yes, it permeates subspace and is absorbed by the ring around McKay's neck."

"And by his whole body."

John narrowed his eyes as he tried to recall the things he had been told over the past week. "It was disrupted by the scanner and made his nose bleed and gave him a really bad headache."

Zelenka nodded sadly and said, "Yes. I believe it absorbed some of the radiation in an unpredictable manner. This disruption caused the pain Rodney felt just before his collapse."

John frowned as he thought about it for a few minutes.

Radek tapped on his computer and scrolled though a few screens before pausing on a code he was working on.

"So, why did it take a while for him to phase out completely? Why wasn't it instant?"

Radek turned his head and looked at John. "That is _the_ question, Colonel, I have been trying to answer for a week now. I believe the radiation is not only drawn around whoever is wearing device, but collects over them. Over time as its concentration increases, so too do the time phases."

"So, it may not be too late to bring him back if we can find a way to remove the device?" John's heart rose even higher in hope and he asked quietly, "Is that why you called me? Have you found a way?"

Radek let out a long and sad sigh, "I am afraid not, Colonel."

"Oh."

"I believe that I may have found a way to block the radiation so that it will not harm Rodney and we can bring him back."

John heard a slightly dejected tone in Radek's voice and asked, "What's the catch?"

Radek seemed to be startled that he had been found out and he shook his head slowly. "I will need to interface the scanner with a ZPM, but it will drain the power very quickly. We need to affect a layer of subspace and that is very taxing. We will only be able to keep it active for a few hours at most."

John furrowed his brow and then asked, "What about the others trapped with him? Will they also be pulled back into normal time?"

Radek frowned while he thought and then said, "It may not be too late to bring Rodney back, but the others have probably been out of time for too long and will have gathered too much radiation. As it is, we will only be able to keep Rodney anchored in real time for a short while. He may not even be able to stay with us for all that time as he could have already drawn too much of the radiation around himself."

John nodded as Radek turned back to the laptop and continued rapidly typing on the keyboard.

"And it will affect the whole of subspace?" John asked.

"Yes. I believe if we go back to the planet, we may be able to get some answers. With Rodney's help we may find a way to remove the device."

John gestured down at the code Radek was working on on his laptop and asked, "Can you be sure about this?"

Zelenka looked up from the screen and gazed at the wall opposite, deep in thought. At length he answered slowly, "No. It might not even work at all."

----------

TBC


	9. The Frozen Sea

**Chapter 9 – The Frozen Sea**

"I cannot authorise such a mission, Colonel," Mr Woolsey said flatly.

John had gathered together Ronon, Teyla and Radek to back him up. They all sat around the Briefing Room table. Radek had just finished outlining the plan to the others using the display screen. The small spark of hope that had been shining in his eyes had now vanished.

Zelenka visibly deflated in front of the people in the room. He walked around the table and sunk down into his chair with a heavy sigh.

Teyla turned her attention to Woolsey, "Even for Rodney?"

"I'm afraid not. It would use too much power, which would be better used defending all of us and Earth from the Wraith."

John felt the back of his neck prickle at Woolsey's cold words. It was almost like he was implying that Rodney was not worth it. John knew that Woolsey had to be objective in his decisions and he also knew that, if he were in Woolsey's position, he probably would have come to the same conclusion. However, this was all about McKay and getting him back and not some impossible and unnecessary mission.

Radek was typing on his tablet and frowning. He spoke without looking up, "The kind of power we are talking about is enough to have a shield around the city for a couple of hours in deep space or while under attack."

Woolsey nodded at Radek and then turned to John as if looking for confirmation that they needed the shield more than anything or indeed _anyone_ else.

Ronon was glaring at Woolsey like he was about to jump up and throttle him. John tried not to think about what he would or would not do if Ronon gave in to his instincts.

John met Woolsey's eyes and said quietly, "An extra couple of hours of shielding won't save us."

Ronon nodded in agreement, "We need McKay."

Woolsey sighed and clasped his hands on the table diplomatically. "You are all using your emotions to cloud your judgement. You know I cannot authorise the use of the ZPM in this way. One man is not enough justification for me and it certainly won't be for the IOA."

"I believe Rodney McKay is worth more than one man," Teyla announced. "He has saved many lives. It would be a great loss, not only for Atlantis, but for the whole of the Pegasus Galaxy if we do not at least try and bring him back."

John glanced at her and they back at Woolsey, "Rodney's the only one who has consistently turned our harebrained and half-assed plans into something that worked. What are we going to do the next time the Wraith show up or we only have seconds left before we're all killed?"

Woolsey sighed. "These are only hypothetical future scenarios of which you speak. How do we know that no-one else," he waved a hand across at Radek, "Dr Zelenka for instance, would not be able to cope?

Zelenka shrunk even further down into his chair, like he did not really want to get involved. He knew that he had to say something to defend himself and so he mumbled, "We really need him back. I do not mind running the department from day to day, but McKay is the only one who can do certain things. We are struggling without him and if there was a sudden crisis it would all fall apart."

John smiled at Radek and the scientist quickly looked away. John knew he was bending the truth slightly to appeal to Woolsey, but he was grateful for it if it would help persuade the man.

Woolsey narrowed his eyes between the two of them, but he did not say anything.

John could see that he still needed some convincing, so he laid all his cards on the table. "Well, I'll admit I am more personally entangled in this plan than I would've liked. Just for the sake of a few more minutes of shields we could have McKay back. He could give us a solution that would mean we never needed to use the shields in the first place. He's saved all of our lives over and over and I owe him one. Hell, the whole of Atlantis owes him one." John locked his intense expression on Woolsey's face and said very finally, "And so do you."

Mr Woolsey looked around the room at Rodney's teammates and friends gazing back at him, awaiting his decision. He glanced down at his hands for a moment while he thought. "Although I condemn this plan and it's against my better judgement, I think that you would probably go ahead without my blessing anyway."

John smirked and Ronon shifted back in his seat as his body relaxed a little from where he had been ready to spring across the room and attack the expedition leader.

"I'm aware that I'm not only the leader of a group of civilians and soldiers, but I also preside over a community. I need to consider the impact of my decisions not only on the city as a structure and a source of power and knowledge we could use for our defence, but also on the people who live and work here."

Woolsey leant forwards in his seat so that he was a little hunched over the table to be closer to the people in the room as he spoke. "I don't see that I have any other choice than to give you the go ahead."

John nearly whooped in joy, but he thought better of it and just exchanged a grin with Radek, Teyla and Ronon. Woolsey was looking down at his hands and frowning. His head snapped up and he asked, "When will you be ready?"

Radek waved a hand at the screen of his laptop, "I do not know. If I may use the resources of the whole science department, possibly this afternoon."

"We'll need to be ready to go off-world straight away." John looked at Radek and continued, "I want both you and Dr Keller to come with us. Call us when you're ready."

Zelenka nodded and closed his laptop before he left the room ahead of the others.

-----------

Rodney walked aimlessly along the corridor. He had found that after a while, if he really concentrated, he could phase himself through the doors in his path. He had already wandered the silent halls of Atlantis many times since he had become trapped out of time.

His expression glazed over as he placed one foot down and then the next and the next as he had done before many times, seemingly forever.

Since he had lost his ammo clip in the corridor and phased out for the final time, he had not seen any sign of Solian or Rorkan. He was glad about the latter, but would have liked some kind of company in his loneliness and boredom. Even Solian would have been better than the solitary and hollow echo of his footsteps and breathing.

The walls around him still rippled as if they should suddenly collapse and flow down into nothing, but Rodney was used to it now.

He never felt tired or hungry and he had seen many labs which he had not yet visited in the real world, as he had come to call it in his head.

"Round about now would be a good time for a rescue, Zelenka. Hell, a week ago would've been better. I've already been trapped in this place for quite long enough, thank you very much."

Rodney sighed sadly and placed his hand against the sealed door he had just reached. He closed his eyes and screwed up his face in concentration.

He willed himself to focus all of his thoughts to the band around his neck and muttered, "Phase out… don't think about getting stuck in the door when this thing tosses me back into the real world…" he shuddered and lifted his other hand so that he was effectively pushing against the door as hard as he could.

"The night should be lovely at the moment. Stare at the stars, like yesterday… and the day before… and every day before that…"

He shivered and frowned and kept his eyes closed. He suddenly felt himself slide through the door and was nearly overcome by the horrible sensation of passing through a solid object, which should have been completely impossible.

Rodney knew he had been successful, because the light which had been pressing on his eyelids suddenly vanished into darkness. He lowered his arms and snapped his eyes widely open to gaze out across the pier he had reached. He walked across the surface and out into the night.

He rolled his eyes at the same sorry sight which had always greeted him from every pier he had now visited in turn.

At first he had been amazed by the effect that the timeless place had had on the sea and had sat gazing at the static waves for what had felt like hours on end, but had possibly been days.

He had long ago given up on using his watch and had taken it off and placed it in his tac vest. He did not want the constant reminder that he was trapped here out of time and of exactly how long he had been alone.

Rodney did not give the sea a second glance when he reached the very edge of the pier. Unchanging waves were crashing against the side of the metal and splashing their white spray up into the air. The water itself was like ice, frozen in an eternal display of mist like a photograph. The endless frozen sea stretched out to the horizon. It was illuminated by the moons which ever hung in the sky in exactly the same place and phase forever more. The unmoving water glittered and shone in the reflected moonlight.

There was a lack of wind and the usual salty tang of the water in the air was also missing. The whole scene was eerily silent, further solidifying its likeness to a snapshot of a single moment in history.

Rodney sighed and sat down. He hung his legs over the edge of the pier and looked down sadly. He sucked in a shaky breath and furrowed his brow.

He thought back to Janus' lab and all the things which had happened since the fateful moment he had picked up the device. He muttered to himself under his breath, "Maybe it killed me? Perhaps I'm dead and I really am in hell. That would sort of make sense, because I can't imagine anything worse than being trapped on my own in a place where I can't do anything."

He frowned and closed his eyes.

After a long time, Rodney used his hands to move himself backwards, so that he no longer had his legs hanging over the edge of the pier. He hugged his arms tightly around his chest as he lay back so that he could look at the sky.

"Small mercy…" he mumbled as he looked up at into the clear sky at the stars. They were etched in the same constellations and positions as they had been to Rodney ever since he had gone out of phase.

He traced the lines he had drawn between the points of lights with his eyes. He chuckled quietly and said, "That one is the ZedPM." He pointed his finger up at the sky and moved it in the form of a rectangle. He then paused for a moment before wiggling his finger in a large circle interspersed with further lines across it, "I call that one 'The Beach Ball.'"

He lowered his hand and placed it over his chest. He shook his head and grimaced, "Oh, my! I really am going crazy aren't I?"

He widened his eyes in horror and wrapped his arms around his ribcage so tightly that he could hardly breathe. He soon relaxed and closed his eyes in an effort to get some rest and clear his mind.

After a few minutes he started to hear a noise. It was steady and rhythmic and got louder every second. It sounded like approaching footsteps.

Rodney jumped up and looked around warily to try and find the location of whoever was coming towards him.

He fingered the hilt of his knife and decided to draw it anyway. He did not really want another run in with Rorkan now, as his mood was so low. He knew he did not really have a chance against the lunatic normally and certainly not now that his strength and survival instincts were almost non-existent.

The speed and quality of the sound suddenly altered and Rodney spun around silently on the spot. His eyes scanned the dark buildings around him and the surface of the pier, but he still could not see anyone nearby.

He gripped his knife more tightly as his hand began to shake. He was anticipating the feeling of a spike being suddenly stabbed into him when he was caught unawares.

"Dr Rodney McKay?"

He nearly jumped out of his skin and released an exasperated sigh. "Solian!"

The other person trapped out of time with McKay was climbing up onto the top of the pier. He had just gone up the ladder leading up from the sea on the side of the pier.

Rodney rolled his eyes and put the knife away while he asked, "Where the hell did you come from? Nearly gave me a heart attack…"

"Went over the sea to the mainland."

Rodney staggered backwards in shock, "You can do that?"

Solian answered, "Yes. When time is stopped it is easy."

Rodney released a small incredulous puff of air. He kicked himself that he had not thought to do something like it himself. "How long does it take?"

"Forever, Dr Rodney McKay." Solian replied with a grim, but good humoured smile.

"Uh, call me Rodney."

Solian nodded and then turned to look out across the water, as the waves remained stuck in the same position. He lifted his head and closed his eyes as he took a deep breath.

Rodney was studying the man next to him intently. Solian seemed to be less mad than he had been when Rodney had first met him. McKay thought perhaps he was serving to ground Solian and bring a little of his former self out of the shell he had created in his solitude.

He gestured with a hand at the sea and asked, "So, what does one do for fun around here?"

"Fun? What, apart from walking over the water to the mainland?"

Rodney laughed a little, the sound and sensation of the act felt unfamiliar and were almost alien to him. It had been such a long time since he had felt or released any kind of happy emotion.

"Seems a bit far away to me. Maybe when I get _really_ bored I'll consider it. I mean, it's just _so_ interesting staying on Atlantis, wandering around empty corridors and walking through doors like I don't exist anymore."

Solian opened his eyes and frowned at Rodney. "Better than Rorkan."

"Do you have any idea where our fellow timeless captive is?"

Solian shook his head, "I cannot sense him. He may be over the ocean or manipulating time to remain hidden."

"What's his problem anyway?" Rodney asked off hand.

Solian stiffened up, but did not speak.

They stood side by side staring out across the still water for a long time. Rodney felt the boredom creeping up on him again and anger began to boil in his chest. He was annoyed that the others had abandoned him to an eternity with only two people for company. One who was totally insane and interested only in terrorising and killing, the other relatively sane, but not exactly the best company for the rest of time.

He released a heavy breath and gritted his teeth.

Solian turned to him and asked, "What is wrong, Rodney?"

McKay suddenly felt a pain spreading out across his forehead and he gasped.

"Rodney!"

Solian held McKay's shoulders as he sunk down onto the ground, clutching his head and shivering. He managed to grunt out a few words in between his rapid breaths, "Something's wrong… stand back… I think… I'm… shifting again…"

Solian's eyes widened and he let go of Rodney like he had been burnt. The stricken man fell back the rest of the way and landed heavily on the pier. He rolled over and pressed his face to the cool metal and clamped his hands against his head as hard as he could. He desperately tried to dull the roaring agony of the headache as he was completely immobilized by the pain.

The darkness abruptly turned to light through Rodney's eyelids and the headache began to recede.

He was still panting and shaking when he felt something gently pressing against his chest. He used the touch as a guide and comfort while he rode out the last of the tremors and began to uncurl himself slightly as the pain diminished. The pressure moved up to his shoulder and squeezed his upper arm, before it stilled and just rested against him.

He tried to call out to whoever was holding him to tell them to leave him alone or they would get trapped out of time as well. He could hear quiet voices speaking to him, but he could not make out any of the words. He felt a light pressure around his arm again.

He kept his eyes tightly closed even when he felt something placed over his face which puffed air against his lips and into his nose. He soon found it easier to breathe and the pain of the headache was numbed even further to something more manageable.

He felt himself being lifted upright to stand and his arm was pulled up and laid out across something strong but still slightly yielding.

Rodney steeled himself and narrowly opened his eyes to find out what was going on.

He turned his face to the side and saw what he thought was probably just a hallucination caused by his rapidly failing sanity. For John Sheppard was standing next to him, and was supporting him while he was being guided over to a nearby transporter.

He smiled back at McKay and Rodney could not help grinning a little foolishly at the crazy angles the Colonel's hair was achieving at that moment and how much he now realised he had missed his friend.

Rodney looked around to his other side and his heart clenched painfully when he saw Jennifer Keller next to him, flanked by a couple of people from her medical team who were carrying a lot of gear.

She asked him, "So, how have you been, Rodney?"

"Not so good, but now I think I may be able to recover eventually."

His voice was muffled by the mask he was still wearing. Jennifer gave him a lopsided smile and reached up to remove it. She let her hand linger a little longer than was absolutely necessary over the back of his head as she drew the securing strap away and returned the mask to the bag she was carrying.

Jennifer gazed at him in happiness and her eyes were bright as they locked with his confused but also deeply relieved blue ones.

Sheppard was beginning to sag under the weight of Rodney's arm in a highly exaggerated manner. He held onto McKay's hand as it was draped across his shoulders so that he was pulling Rodney down slightly.

McKay tore his eyes from Jennifer and glared at him as he was nearly unbalanced and tipped over.

Rodney sighed heavily and finally took John's hint. He removed his arm from the Colonel's shoulders and John instantly and nonchalantly straightened up. He raised his eyebrows at McKay and gave him a knowing glare.

Rodney stuttered, "How… how did you?"

"Radek found a way." John replied, "But we need to gate offworld as soon as possible to the address Janus left behind."

As they all walked over to the transporter, Rodney suddenly stopped.

"Come on, McKay. You're draining all the power out of the ZPM while we're dallying around here."

"Draining power!?" Rodney repeated back in a shocked voice.

John laughed, "I know! Talk about high maintenance! Woolsey's given us four hours and then we shut it down."

"Four hours?"

Rodney started moving again and John answered his question just as they reached the transporter, "Four hours to find a way to remove that device and then… if we can't do it…"

Rodney furrowed his brow and grimaced, "I'll be thrown out of phase again and remain stuck there for the rest of time…"

----------

TBC


	10. The Pendulum

**Chapter 10 – The Pendulum**

"So, what's the big plan then Sheppard?" Rodney asked as he rubbed his hands together in the cool air of new planet they had found themselves on after stepping through the gate.

The sky was completely veiled by dark clouds, which threatened rain and cast the entire scene in a dull grey hue.

"I was hoping you could tell me."

Rodney scowled and folded his arms over his chest. "How exactly am I supposed to know more than you do? You're alright, you've had a week to read the database while I wasn't able to do anything at all for what felt like months. Perhaps you expect me to use my amazing powers of psychic deduction to magic up a route for us?"

Ronon chuckled, "Sure McKay, go ahead."

Rodney rolled his eyes and started to look even angrier than he was already.

Radek was standing on the other side of the DHD, where Teyla, Ronon and Jennifer were waiting for Rodney to show them the way.

Radek said, "There was nothing in database; only this address. The others you saw while you were not with us; did they tell you anything?" He raised his eyebrows, "You _did_ ask?"

"Oh, I asked alright, but there's only one person there capable of speech and he's not exactly chatty."

John sighed, "Nothing then?"

Rodney dropped his arms down by his sides and frowned, "No."

"What about the device?" Radek asked, "Can you feel anything different here, perhaps a pull towards something?"

Rodney narrowed his eyes and reached up to touch the band around his neck. He sighed and looked around at the scattered and leafless trees nearby. "No. All that I can feel is a piece of metal threatening to drag me out of phase again at any moment."

A cool breeze rustled the bare branches of the trees. The gate was in the centre of a large rocky field. Tufts of grass grew here and there and the field was in a gentle slope going down into a valley. In the distance, smoke could be seen rising from a fire in the village closest to the gate.

Teyla's face was sad and she asked, "Maybe we should go back? Shut down the device interfaced with the ZPM until we have found the reason why this planet was in Janus' database?"

John shook his head, "No, I'm not giving up yet. We should walk around a bit. Maybe being so close to the gate is blocking something. We could question the villagers again and see what they say this time."

Ronon nodded, "Sounds good."

As they walked down the slope, Rodney did begin to feel something different. It was like a sense of empowerment emanating from the metal bound to him, but he could not localize the origin of it.

After they had only gone a few hundred metres he stopped abruptly and closed his eyes.

Jennifer went over to him and asked, "What is it?"

"I'm not sure. It feels like I'm about to be pulled out of phase again, but for some reason I can stop it from taking me away."

John glanced around and his eyes settled on the village a short distance away, "We're on the clock here guys. Only three and half hours left!"

Rodney's eyes snapped open and he grimaced, "I know! I don't know what this thing's doing to me." He curled his fingers under the metal ring as if trying to pull it off, but as before it just served to make his neck red and sore.

They continued to walk and soon reached the outer edge of the village. There were brick houses lining the cobbled streets. Only a few of the locals were out and about as the team proceeded down the street. Several of them gave Rodney fearful looks when they caught sight of the band around his neck.

"Ever get the feeling that people don't like you very much?" Rodney asked as another villager fled up a side alley without a word as they approached him.

Ronon had his eyes open widely and he scanned around the team as they approached the central square of the village. He glanced up at the windows of the houses and down every alley and side road as they passed. His hand hovered ever ready by his blaster.

Teyla was doing the same and had her lips set in a thin and worried line. She slowed slightly and let Sheppard catch up with her. She spoke under her breath to him, "Colonel, something is wrong. These villagers denied knowledge of the metal bands the last time we came. Do you not think that their behaviour is now unusual as they advised us they did not know of the devices?"

"It _is_ a little strange," John replied, equalling Teyla's volume. "But we didn't speak with everyone. I thought they seemed a little off hand and perhaps a little too quick to deny knowledge. I just assumed it was a culture thing, rather than an attempt to hide anything."

Rodney's eyes were wide and fearful as he watched the reactions of yet another villager. He turned to John and said, "I don't like this very much. Do you think they want us to leave?"

Radek walked alongside McKay and said, "Probably, it is now clear that they know something. I wonder what it is?"

The team soon reached the square. The buildings were more lavish and a much larger structure dominated the centre of the village. It looked like a town hall or some kind of church.

They continued to move towards the centre of the square where there was a market and many people who had not seem them approaching.

A group of five men suddenly stepped out in front of the Lanteans and the leader at the front held up his hand to halt them. The team stopped and Rodney moved into the centre of them and behind Ronon so that they could not see him.

It was already too late though as the leader of the group pointed to Ronon and said, "The one whom you hide and protect. He has the mark of time and must leave this place at once or die."

Rodney grimaced and shrunk down even lower towards the ground in an effort to look smaller as he remained behind Ronon.

John asked the leader, "Kill him? That's not very nice. I thought we were developing a really good relationship last time we were here, but there was never any talk of violence."

The leader narrowed his eyes and the other four men behind him flexed their muscles menacingly. He said vehemently, "We have paintings and carvings warning us against the people who can control time. Knowledge has been passed down to us over many centuries that it is a dangerous power to have and must be destroyed at all costs."

"By destroy, you mean kill?" John asked incredulously. The leader nodded.

Radek piped up in a small voice, "We are looking for a way to remove the device from our companion, which will also take away the power he has. Do you know of any facilities or locations which seem out of place on this planet?"

The leader leered menacingly down at the diminutive scientist and said nastily, "Oh, we _know_ a way to remove the device."

Rodney had not seen the leader's expression and stepped out from behind Ronon with an eager and smiling face. He asked, "Really?" but his face quickly fell and his hands went up to his neck protectively, "Oh, like that…"

The leader started to advance, but John blocked his path and held up his hands. "May I ask how you know about the device? It was created over ten thousand years ago. Somehow, I don't think your lovely little community has endured for that long and been able to pass on their knowledge this efficiently."

The leader of the group narrowed his eyes but did not say anything. It was obvious they were still hiding something.

Teyla could see the situation was still deteriorating as the men began to advance once more. She said calmingly, "If we were to leave this village, would you let us go? We believe there may be a way to help our friend without resorting to violence."

The leader turned his head briefly to his men and then uttered, "No." He then pointed his finger at Rodney and shouted, "Get him!"

Before any of them could raise their weapons, the men ran at them. The leader punched Sheppard in the face and he staggered backwards, before raising his arms up and hitting back.

Ronon quickly drew his blaster and stunned one of them before he was tackled.

Rodney was stumbling backwards away from the fight with Radek and Jennifer. The group of attackers were fighting one on one with Sheppard, Ronon and Teyla, while the remaining man approached the three civilians.

McKay drew his gun and pointed it at the man as he manoeuvred himself in front of Jennifer and Radek. He called out in a high pitched and wobbly voice, "Don't come any closer!"

The man laughed a little at Rodney's fearful expression and stance and reached behind his back. Before Rodney could shoot him, he quickly brought his arm forwards and flung a knife at McKay.

Rodney closed his eyes and squeezed the trigger of his gun in hope that the bullet would find the man before he felt the knife sink into him. A loud bang echoed from his sidearm as he pulled the trigger all the way back.

When Rodney did not feel any pain, he narrowly cracked his eyes open. He frowned in confusion at the strange scene in front of him. He had inadvertently frozen time again as his unconscious forced control over the device to save his life.

He holstered the gun and walked towards the man who had thrown the blade. His face was set in a look of savage triumph as he blindsided McKay. The scene had descended into silence and Rodney's rapid and shaky breaths echoed loudly around in the stillness. His heart pounded as adrenaline coursed through his bloodstream.

Rodney walked up and eyed the knife hovering halfway spun around in mid air as it had been frozen in its act. He looked along the angle it was flying and saw that if it were to carry on it would hit Jennifer when time unfroze again.

He quickly stepped into the path of the blade again to protect her if time suddenly decided to carry on going. He needed to move it somehow.

Rodney walked over to the knife in the air and reached up his trembling fingers and took hold of the hilt. He tried to grab it, but it was stuck there. "Oh, come on! Give me something here!" He grunted in exertion, but it would not move.

He remembered the way he had been able to deflect John's knife in the corridor in his distant memory and how he had shoved him forwards even with just a light touch while time was stopped.

Rodney hoped that his tugging had been enough to set the blade on a course away from Jennifer and Radek. He turned his focus to John, Teyla and Ronon as they stood as bizarre and heroic statues while they blocked and punched the other attackers.

He walked over to them and studied each pair. Ronon looked like he had just got a hit in and the man he had struck was staggering backwards. Rodney pressed his hands against the man's chest and shoved. He then walked around him and pressed his foot against the back of one of the man's legs to help him on his way. He hoped it would be enough to make him fall down when time moved on.

Teyla had already defeated her attacker and was standing in a fighting stance over him as he lay on the ground. Rodney ignored them and went over to John.

Sheppard had his arms up to block a punch that was approaching him. Rodney stood in between them and considered pushing Sheppard out of the way as well as the man behind him. He reached up and gently put his hands on Sheppard's shoulders briefly, hoping it would be enough to move him out of the way.

Rodney was just about to turn around and work on the man behind, who was the leader of the group, when time suddenly decided to start going again. The sounds abruptly came back again and the fist which had been aiming for Sheppard was driven into Rodney's back.

A short distance away Jennifer and Radek peered in confusion at the man in front of them who had just collapsed after being shot. The knife had altered course and was harmlessly imbedded in the ground a short distance from them.

Ronon was frowning in confusion as the man in front of him seemed to have been hit by an invisible force and fell down.

Rodney cried out as the fist bruised him and he staggered forwards into John. Sheppard was still standing and tried to get McKay out of the way before the man got another chance to punch him.

He was not fast enough though, as the man lifted both of his hands up and clasped them together. He quickly brought them down and struck Rodney a brutal blow in between his shoulder blades.

McKay's teeth rattled under the force of the impact when he felt the fists thumping hard into his upper back. He fell over and rolled away under inertia. His vision clouded over as he could not catch his breath. The last image that reached his eyes was one of John hitting out at the leader in fury and taking him down. Rodney then slowly closed his eyes and abandoned himself to the darkness.

----------

Rodney awoke with a start and coughed a little as a pain spread out across his lower back and through the top of his spine. It radiated down into his shoulders as he curled up on his side.

He soon noticed the silence and opened his eyes to look around the scene blearily. "Oh, good timing," he laughed a little at the pun, before he coughed again and winced.

The sense of control flowing through him had intensified sharply since he had first felt it. He had no idea how long he had been lying there, but it seemed that time had stopped soon after he had been knocked out.

The silence was suddenly broken by the scarily familiar sound of shuffling footsteps.

Rodney tensed up and screwed up his face in pain as it awoke the bruising across his back. He mumbled, "Internal bleeding, not so good."

He carefully rolled over onto all fours and slowly stood up. He shook a little as the muscles across his back stretched out and tensed to hold him upright. He turned his head stiffly to try and find out who was now haunting him in the timeless place. Surely Solian and Rorkan could not have followed him through the gate?

"Unless they froze time at the moment the gate was active and decided to join me," he thought.

His eyes widened and he grabbed the hilt of his knife and drew it forwards; ready to meet whoever was coming.

The approaching sound suddenly stopped and Rodney's glare intensified in concentration as he waited for it to start again so that he could localise it. He stood like that for a few minutes and his palms became sweaty and his hands trembled under the prolonged stress to his system of the adrenaline with no outlet.

The sound did not start again. The next thing Rodney knew something heavy and unyielding cracked him in the side of his ribcage and he cried out as he fell down.

Rodney's knife flew out of his hand and when it got a short distance away, it stopped in its movements as it was forced back into normal time.

When he landed, all the breath that remained in him was forced out in a whoosh and he found that he could not draw any more air into his lungs. He rolled over onto his back and furrowed his brow as his uncooperative diaphragm refused to work no matter how hard he fought and struggled.

He did not have enough strength to move out of the way when he saw Rorkan standing over him with a look of brutality etched into his malevolent features. He was wielding the spike he ever carried like a baseball bat and Rodney knew it had been him who had hit him a moment ago.

He gazed down lazily at Rodney on the ground in front of him and changed the position of the spike in his hands. McKay felt like all his ribs on one side had been shattered and his vision of the world around was beginning to darken as he still could not breathe. He writhed a little involuntarily as he curled upwards and tried to kickstart his breathing.

His chest suddenly hitched as he finally managed to draw in a laboured breath of life giving oxygen. His vision ramped back up to normal at exactly the same time as Rorkan raised the spike above his head and rapidly brought it down through the air towards Rodney.

McKay closed his eyes and turned his face to the side just before he was stabbed with the spike. He gasped as the tip punched through his tac vest and embedded in him just below his sternum. He held his breath as pain spread throughout his belly and up into his chest from the point of the spike.

Rodney grimaced and wondered why Rorkan had stopped. He reached across himself and took hold of the spike where it was stabbing him in an effort to stop it from shifting and causing more damage and pain.

Rodney opened his confused, watering eyes and looked up at Rorkan who was crouched down by his side and grasping the spike in a tight grip as he buried it in McKay.

He was frozen in time and his face was brilliant white as it had been when Solian had created the second layer of frozen time in the corridor in Rodney's distant history.

Rodney was feeling light-headed from holding his breath for too long and his throat had started to ache. He closed his eyes as he exhaled and inhaled slowly. He winced when his tight grip on the weapon did not prevent it from moving in him. He felt dampness against his hands as blood welled up around the spike and soaked through his tac vest.

He furrowed his brow and grunted, "Oh, great, brilliant, what an excellent plan, McKay! Stop time _after_ being stabbed. You know; really draw it out… make it last…"

He tried to move the point of the sharp weapon out of himself by reaching up and pressing his hand against Rorkan's wrists, but he was as solidly frozen as everyone else. He bunched his hands into fists and gritted his teeth when the spike sunk a little further into him due to his movement.

He lay as still as he could and drew in shallow breaths as he contemplated his options. He soon realised that he only had two and neither were what he would have liked. Either unfreeze time and end it relatively quickly or wait forever in agony. Rodney thought he would bleed to death before it came to forever, so he half ruled out the second option. That only left the first one.

He had pushed Rorkan away, but would it have been enough to stop the downward motion of the spike and draw it out of him when time unfroze?

He desperately needed a third option and fast as he could feel tremors spreading out across his body under the strain of the constant pain and shock over the blood loss from the wound. Any kind of movement through shaking would be devastating to him and he willed himself to stop. He soon found that he could not go against his body's natural reaction to the spike and started to shiver.

"Oh, ow!" He uttered through quivering lips as his pain level increased exponentially from the shifting.

Rodney closed his eyes, but that only left the agony in the darkness as there was no longer anything in sight to distract him. He could not roll away from the source of his pain as it would be more than likely that the spike would get caught up in his tac vest at the same time as slicing him completely open. He did not like to think of how long it would take him to bleed to death from such an injury, but he reasoned that his time left would be measured in seconds rather than minutes.

He tightly screwed up his face and gasped under his breath, "I need a third option…"

----------

TBC


	11. Seven Stars

_A/N – Thanks for the reviews! Here's the third option… Oh and my medical knowledge is minimal ;)_

**Chapter 11 – Seven Stars**

Rodney's eyes slowly slid shut as the pain broke through his defences and wore him down. He could feel himself weakening through blood loss and his tired mind whispered negative thoughts to him, _"Oh my, I really am going to die aren't I? What a way to go, skewered by some crazy Ancient who stands like a statue forever stabbing me!"_

He snapped his eyes open as he felt himself drifting and floating away. He furrowed his brow as he looked up at Rorkan and continued to shake. His breath was coming in shallow gasps as it felt like there was a pressure in his chest and it was restricting his breathing. He wondered if he had a punctured lung from where Rorkan had hit him or if it was due to the spike slicing through his internal organs and blocking his diaphragm.

He turned his face to the side and looked around at the frozen people. He saw Sheppard standing over the leader of the thugs who had attacked them. It looked like he had only just taken him down after Rodney had been knocked out.

Rodney pressed his hands in the centre of his torso around the point of the metal digging into him and he tried to push his belly down so that he would be able to roll away from the spike. It hurt him so much that his eyes watered and he whimpered. He relaxed and the weapon was driven back under his skin where it had been before.

He felt himself being lost to despair and he thought darkly, _"This is utterly hopeless."_ He looked across at Sheppard again, _"Oh, I wish you or someone else could help me…"_

The prolonged pain and blood loss soon caught up with him and his eyelids fluttered closed. He did not know whether he was just going to pass into unconsciousness or the welcoming arms of death. He was afraid of sleeping in case he did not wake, but he was not strong enough to fight against the inevitable. He knew he was going to die either way and would rather not draw it out for too long much longer.

Rodney was at the edge of awareness when he heard a voice. He also felt something touching his forehead and then it rested on his chest for a few seconds before moving back up to pat his cheek.

"Rodney? You _are_ still breathing... Rodney? Can you hear me?"

McKay narrowed his eyes and squinted up blearily at the owner of the voice, "Solian?" He mumbled quietly.

He rested his hand on McKay's shoulder as he knelt down next to the scientist, "Do not speak. You are gravely hurt."

Solian's face was pinched in worry as he looked along Rodney and his eyes lingered on the location where he was pinned immobile to the ground by the spike.

Rodney had to disobey and asked through clenched teeth, "How?"

Solian looked down into his face and furrowed his brow as he said, "Followed you through the stargate. This planet is familiar. The lab is close."

Rodney felt himself losing consciousness again and Solian patted his cheek to rouse him, "Do not sleep. I can help you."

McKay frowned at him in confusion as Solian grasped one of his trembling and blood soaked hands. Solian moved up into a crouch and placed his other hand firmly against Rorkan's arms where they were holding the spike.

He turned to look down into Rodney's pain filled and slightly glazed blue eyes. "Do not move yet. Only when I say."

Rodney nodded at him and steeled himself for what Solian was about to do. _"This is it,"_ he thought, _"That spike will either be torn out or be driven so deeply into me that I'll die instantly."_

Solian suddenly removed the second layer of frozen time and Rodney cried out as the spike was pushed down a little further before Solian shoved Rorkan away from him.

The weapon was pulled out of Rodney's abdomen and Solian let go of his hand and shouted, "Now!"

Rorkan had managed to free himself from Solian's unexpected deflection of the spike and swung the weapon up and down towards Rodney again. McKay was able to roll over a few times and lay panting as he curled up on his side a few metres away. When the weapon missed him, Rorkan stood up straight.

Rodney pressed his hands against the wound and found that his breathing, although fast, was easier as the blood leaked out and relieved the pressure. He looked around and located Rorkan and Solian struggling with each other a short distance away.

They were both fighting to gain ownership of the spike and it looked like Rorkan was winning. His face was twisted in exertion and menace as he smiled slightly. Rodney shivered and grimaced when he saw a few centimetres of the pointed end of the spike were coated in dark red and shining blood.

Rorkan wrenched the spike out of Solian's hands and Rodney knew the man was in big trouble. He also knew that he was the only one around who could help Solian in his fight.

McKay gritted his teeth as he rolled over onto his knees. He clutched his bleeding midsection tightly as he staggered up onto his feet. He flinched as he fully straightened up and his surroundings tipped drunkenly before he regained his balance and focus.

Rorkan swung the spike round in an arc and struck Solian's upper arm. He cried out and stumbled sideways as Rorkan approached him and readied the weapon for a stab.

McKay moved stiffly trying to prevent himself from splitting right open from the puncture wound just beneath his ribcage. He walked as fast as he could manage and calculated his next move as Solian and Rorkan stared at each other and Rorkan stood poised ready for his next attack.

Rodney had no weapon apart from the gun. An idea flashed across his mind and he unholstered his sidearm while his other arm remained wrapped around his torso and kept up the pressure on his injury.

Rorkan's eyes darted over to McKay and he narrowed them when he saw the gun. He suddenly vanished and Solian's eyes widened.

Solian ran over to Rodney and took his hand and pulled them down into the second and deepest layer of frozen time so that Rorkan would lose his advantage.

"Ugh, he's such a cheater," Rodney mumbled softly as Rorkan reappeared a short distance away. Rorkan's expression was a little startled that he now had to fight without his ability to sneak up on his victims by manipulating time.

He spun around to look at the two men squaring up to him and frowned as he curled his upper lip into a snarl. He growled as he ran at them.

Rodney raised his gun and waited for Rorkan to get close enough so that he would run into the bullet before it was pulled into normal time. He increased pressure on the trigger as his hand shook and the barrel wavered in the air.

Rorkan released a roar as he brought the spike back ready for a fatal blow. Rodney fired the gun and watched as the bullet tore through Rorkan's shoulder. Blood flew out behind the attacker as he was forced backwards from the shot.

His arm fell down and hung limply down by his side, but he instantly recovered and continued to approach Solian and McKay at a run. He grasped the spike one handed and swung it in a sweeping sideways motion. He smacked it into Rodney's forearm and he yelped as he dropped his gun. He placed his damaged arm over his chest while his other hand remained pressed against the bloody stab wound. He hunched over and closed his eyes in pain from the latest attack.

Solian quickly caught the gun just before it was wrenched out of the timeless place. Rorkan was more interested in finishing off McKay as he was the one who had been able to hurt him. He was just about to hit Rodney in the side of the head with the spike, when Solian moved up close to him and fired a few more bullets into him from Rodney's gun.

Rorkan screamed and the spike slipped from his fingers as he fell down. He shook violently for a few seconds as he bled out into a large pool. He then relaxed and released a long breath before becoming completely still.

Solian looked down at him in disgust and then frowned at the gun in his hand. He quickly tossed it away and walked over to McKay.

Rodney was still standing, but only just. It looked like he was about to crumple and was bent at the waist and gasping. Solian helped him to sit down and then joined him on the ground. They sat facing Rorkan so that they could make sure he did not mysteriously resurrect and attack them again.

Rodney had his eyes closed and his face was lined with agony as he trembled. He whispered, "Bandage, in my tac vest…"

Solian went through the pockets until he found it and helped Rodney unzip his vest. He grimaced when he saw the amount of blood soaked into McKay's clothes. He peeled away the sodden shirt and wrapped the pressure bandage around the injury.

Rodney winced and hissed through his teeth while Solian worked and he asked, "Your arm, you got hit as well. How is it?"

Solian carefully tested his limb and frowned, "It is bruised, but not broken. What about yours?"

"It's pretty bad. I haven't been able to move it yet."

Solian narrowed his eyes as he looked at Rodney's arm hanging by his side while McKay tugged his shirt back down and placed his other hand against the bandage underneath.

Rodney quickly said, "There's a lab nearby? Maybe you could point me in the right direction. We think we might be able to use it to get these bands off."

"Can you stand?"

"I don't think so," Rodney grimaced and protested as Solian grabbed his uninjured wrist and pulled him upright anyway. He muttered, "And here was me thinking that Rorkan was evil…"

McKay flagged and threatened to collapse onto the ground, so Solian drew his uninjured arm over his shoulders and supported him to keep him upright. He turned around and tried to get his bearings and remember the location of the lab in his distant memory.

After a few minutes, he pointed away from the village, further down into the valley and said, "It is close to the river, hidden in the rocks."

"I need the others to help me," Rodney said. "If we find a way, how would you feel about finally getting out of this place and coming back to the real world?"

Solian frowned in confusion and then his face lit up, "The real world? That would be a wonder after all this time, Dr Rodney McKay."

Rodney smiled and shrugged off the supporting arm. He said, "I'll come back for you before we do it. That is if we can find the lab and find a way."

Rodney closed his eyes and concentrated on his teammates and the band around his neck giving him the power he needed to leave the timeless place. He furrowed his brow as the pain in his middle and the dizziness distracted him so he tried to block it out.

He sighed as he felt his legs shaking under the strain of keeping him standing and they threatened to give out on him. He gritted his teeth and focused.

----------

Sounds soon returned to Rodney's ears and his eyes flew open.

All the men who had attacked the team were either unconscious or moaning on the ground. John looked shocked at Rodney's sudden jump in space and his dishevelled appearance.

He glanced down at the man he had defeated before he came over to Rodney and checked him over. "What happened to you, McKay?"

Jennifer and Radek saw that the coast was now clear and they walked over to join them. Keller quickly spotted Rodney's pale and sweaty face and bloodied hands and gestured for him to sit down. His tac vest hung open and his shirt underneath shone with blood.

McKay pushed her away with a hiss and said, "I know where the lab is."

Jennifer put her rucksack down and took Rodney's shoulders firmly to hold him up. She met his eyes and said, "Let me help you."

Rodney stepped backwards away from her and Radek had to grab him to stop him from tipping over onto the ground. Rodney huffed out an annoyed breath and said, "The only help I need is to get rid of this ridiculous necklace. Once it's off you can poke and prod me all you like."

A flicker of a smile passed across Jennifer's face before it returned to an expression of serious concern.

John rolled his eyes in exasperation at the uncooperative and clearly seriously hurt scientist, "Common McKay, we've still got three hours before our deadline's up."

"Maybe, but I don't think I've got that much time before I lose what little control I have over this thing and then I'll be gone forever."

Jennifer crouched down and rummaged in the rucksack. She pulled out a bandage and pointed at Rodney's midsection. "At least let me take a look. Won't do you any good if you die on us before we find out how to remove the band around your neck."

McKay screwed up his face in pain as Jennifer pressed the bandage over the other one under his shirt and wrapped it tightly around his torso. She had her face set in a grim line and John was standing nearby, ready to catch Rodney it he collapsed.

Rodney flinched as she finished tying it off and he clenched one of his fists. Jennifer straightened up and eyed him critically, "Anything else you want to tell me about?"

McKay took stock of his many injuries, his ribs, back and arm screamed out at him equally for his attention. He shook his head, "Not really, it can wait."

Jennifer narrowed her eyes and nodded, "We must hurry, you've got serious bleeding from whatever happened to you. In fact, if you're too stubborn to let us take you back to the infirmary, I really need some more equipment from Atlantis to help you."

Rodney muttered, "I had a final run in with Rorkan."

John widened his eyes in shock and then gestured at Rodney as he said, "I take it this is you winning the fight this time."

"Yep, it was quite a match."

John turned to Ronon and said, "I want you to go back and dial the gate so that we can send out a radio signal."

Ronon nodded and stalked off back the way they had come.

Rodney looked around at the ground and got a fright when he saw that Rorkan's spike had shifted into normal time after it had slipped from his cold dead fingers. McKay pointed down at it and asked, "What is it? Is that writing around the base?"

Teyla frowned down at the weapon and reluctantly picked up the bloodied piece of metal. She held it out in front of Rodney and John narrowed his eyes at the fresh blood evident on the sharp point. He asked, "Did Rorkan use _that_ on you?"

Rodney shuddered and pressed his hand against his middle with a groan. He gasped, "It _is_ writing. I think it may be important. Keep hold of it until we get to the lab."

The villagers were all looking at them in alarm, so they decided it was time to leave.

John took Rodney's uninjured arm and draped it across his shoulders. McKay protested, "I think I can walk, Sheppard!" But he promptly stumbled as he moved his feet, even with John's support.

Radek rolled his eyes behind Rodney's back and Jennifer shouldered her rucksack while Teyla followed the group and kept her eyes sharp just in case any more villagers decided they did not like them anymore.

----------

After twenty very slow and agonising minutes of stumbling and shuffling footsteps, the team finally reached the edge of a wide river.

Rodney was getting weaker as he lost more and more blood from the stab wound. He leant heavily against John and he was becoming difficult to hold upright.

They stopped on a beach and Rodney looked over at a rocky wall nearby and said quietly, "It's in a rock face. Don't know how it works."

Radek pulled out his normal hand scanner and waved it around in the air. He frowned, "There is nothing."

"It must be shielded," Rodney said tiredly, "Why don't you try it?

John passed Rodney to Teyla and went over to the wall. He ran his hands over the surface without touching it. He then pressed against it and his hands disappeared into the structure up to the wrists.

"Ancient gene," Rodney murmured.

John walked back over to Rodney and shouldered his arm again. "You can shut it down on the other side."

Rodney nodded and John manoeuvred them both through the shield. The lights in the short corridor where already lit as they came through the wall on the other side. John propped Rodney up against the wall and pulled a scanner from his tac vest and tried to hand it to him.

Rodney found that he could not lift his injured arm to take the device. "I'm sorry," he uttered in a sad whisper, "I need to sit down."

John carefully lowered him onto the ground and he leant back against the wall and took the scanner in his working hand. He waved it up at the opposite wall and mumbled, "Panel. Pull it off and remove the third crystal."

John did as he was asked and the shield wavered for a moment before it vanished.

He retrieved the scanner from Rodney and helped him to stand again as the others came into the facility.

They walked along the short corridor and John waved his hand over the control panel. The single door opened for them into a small round room.

All around the edge there were seven alcoves, not unlike the stasis field chambers back on Atlantis. In the centre of the room there was a large control panel and Radek went over to it and quickly interfaced his computer and started to work.

Rodney tried to go over and help him but it pulled his bruises and he released a breath in an, "Oh," just before his legs gave out and John could no longer hold him up.

His impact on the floor was softened by John guiding him down slowly and he lay flat on his back and closed his eyes.

Jennifer said to them, "I called a full medical team and a Jumper while you were deactivating the shield. I know it's not that far to the gate, but…" she gestured down at Rodney's prone form.

"Good call," John replied.

Jennifer placed her rucksack down close to Rodney and knelt down beside him. He narrowed his eyes at her briefly before turning his face away. He mumbled, "There's still one thing I need to do. I _promised_..."

He screwed up his face in concentration for a few seconds and then abruptly vanished.

John only had a moment to share a confused look with Jennifer and Teyla looked on while she covered the door to the lab.

Rodney suddenly reappeared on the other side of the lab and collapsed heavily onto the ground. Jennifer ran over to him with John and grabbed hold of his shoulders to try and steady him as tremors ran throughout his body.

Jennifer said soothingly, "The medical team will be here in a minute. Just hang on a little longer, Rodney."

John accidentally took hold of Rodney's damaged arm and McKay shuddered and pulled it away protectively. Jennifer quickly grabbed a pair of scissors from her medical kit and cut away his sleeve before he could recover enough to realise what was going on.

McKay's forearm had a very dark purple and black bruise completely covering one side. Jennifer gently took his hand and asked, "Can you move your fingers for me, Rodney?"

He managed to partially clench his fist and winced.

While Jennifer worked on Rodney, John went over to check on Radek's progress. "How's it coming?"

"I am having trouble activating the systems. There is a lockout in place which I cannot breach."

Rodney had been listening and he called out weakly, "The spike. The writing on the spike…"

John retrieved the weapon from Teyla as she handed it to him and returned to Radek. The scientist took the spike and shivered when he saw the rusty blood coating the entire weapon. He narrowed his eyes in concentration and turned it over in his palms as his eyes tracked along the characters.

After a few seconds he glanced down at the console in front of him and lifted the spike up before he carefully drove it down into a small hole in the centre of the main control panel.

A quiet hum instantly filled the room as the spike activated the systems, like a key had just been turned in the ignition.

Radek tapped on his tablet for a moment and then smiled at John, "This is incredible! The power is being channelled through this lab and out into subspace. There is a massive underground structure beneath us."

John asked, "What, do you mean ZPMs?"

"I do not know. According to these readings there is an unusual mineral in this planet's core and that is where the power comes from."

John waved his hand around at the alcoves, "Can you figure out a way to remove the device around McKay's neck?"

"Oh, yes, that part is easy. It is unusual to me that it would be so. I have also found more data in this console."

John said, "I don't care about anything other than removing the metal band at the moment, Radek."

The scientist typed on his computer for a few more seconds and then looked across the room at Rodney lying on the floor. Jennifer was pressing against the bandages around his middle where blood had already started to leak through the second one. He then looked at the alcove nearest to the two of them and said, "I am ready. Rodney needs to stand in the alcove, then I will activate the program."

"Okay, on my mark."

Radek sighed sadly and glanced down at the code on the computer screen.

John helped Rodney to stand, but he was barely conscious and difficult to move. He half carried him over to the alcove and propped him up inside the chamber. As he tried to leave, Rodney crumpled and John had to catch him before he fell right out. "Come on! Help me out here, McKay!"

Rodney's lips parted as his mouth hung open and he drew in a shaky breath. He opened his eyes and gazed at John blearily. He visibly steeled himself and winced as he forced muscles to work again and hold him upright.

"That's more like it! Just wait like that for a moment and we'll have that thing off you."

Rodney gave John a brave but very small smile as he stepped away from the scientist.

John called out across the room, "Go ahead, Radek."

"I will have to activate all seven alcoves, so stand back." Zelenka tapped a few keys on his computer and brilliant white lights suddenly lit up inside each alcove.

Rodney whispered, "Seven stars…" as he was enveloped in the glow. He felt the cold metal around his throat come apart and fall down onto the ground where it became innocuous for a moment before it disintegrated into useless dust. He felt something warm dribbling down into his mouth and running across his jaw line.

The cycle was soon complete and the lights dimmed and turned out. Rodney's nose was bleeding heavily and what little colour there had been remaining in his pale face had now left. The blood stood out starkly and was almost black against his skin. He pitched forwards from the alcove and John caught him before he landed and laid him down carefully on his side.

On the other side of the room another man had appeared in one of the alcoves and also fell forwards with a bloody nose. There was no-one there to catch him as he crumpled onto the ground.

Teyla was still watching the entrance to the lab in between glancing at the situation behind her. She announced, "The Jumper has arrived!"

----------

TBC


	12. Finding The Way Back

**Chapter 12 – Finding The Way Back**

**_Janus' Log: Project 117 (Live Trials) – Day One  
_****_  
_**_The first trials of the time manipulating rings I created have been a complete success! The subjects are able to phase in and out of time exactly as I planned. They reported that they have been able to successfully stop time as well as speed it up._

_My only concern is that there have been complaints of frequent headaches and nose bleeds. I am unable to ascertain the exact cause of these symptoms. I believe it may be due to the subspace power supply I created in order that they may use their newfound abilities anywhere in the galaxy._

----------

The medical team came into the lab flanked by several marines, including Major Lorne.

Jennifer was crouching down next to Solian and checking him over for any injuries.

John was kneeling by Rodney and continued to apply pressure against the drenched bandages laid out over his abdomen. He had not woken since he fell from the alcove and his nose had only just stopped bleeding.

Rodney's ghostly face was streaked with bright red. The only sign that he was still alive was coming from the almost imperceptible and very shallow rise and fall of his chest as he stubbornly continued to draw air in and out of his lungs.

Jennifer stood up as two of the medical team took over from her. She told them of Solian's condition and then walked over to Rodney.

John was pushed back out of the way as Jennifer worked on getting McKay ready for transport with another of her colleagues.

They cut away the rest of his shirt to survey him for any further injuries he may have hidden. They inserted IV lines and placed an oxygen mask over his face. Jennifer gently ran her hands along his ribcage after she found the extensive and dark bruising on the right side of his chest. "Suspected fractures to his right arm and several ribs. There's also deep bruising across his upper and lower back."

The newcomer pressed a fresh bandage in the centre of Rodney's torso and the marines helped to wrap him in blankets before they carefully lifted him onto a backboard and strapped him down.

Jennifer held the IV bag aloft and they followed the rest of her team out as the marines carried Solian on another backboard. She looked down at Rodney and then turned to her colleague, "He's lost a lot of blood from a penetrating stab wound just below his sternum. Is everything ready back on Atlantis, like I asked?"

"Yes, Doctor. They are waiting for us."

Radek was standing in a dazed silence as he watched the medical teams leaving with McKay and the stranger. John went over to him and said, "We need to leave too. Can you shut it down?"

Radek shook his head to clear the stunned expression and blinked down at his computer. He frowned, "I do not think that would be such a good idea."

John set his lips in a thin line as Zelenka reached across and extracted the spike from the console. "However, I _can_ lock it out."

John nodded at him and took the weapon away as he hastily gathered up his gear. Teyla followed them out as they jogged up the corridor and back outside into the rear compartment of the waiting Jumper.

Just before they left, Radek activated a control on his scanner and sealed the lab once more. All that remained to show the location of the facility was featureless rock.

----------

_**Janus' Log: Project 117 (Live Trials) – Day Five**_

_There has been an interesting and wholly unexpected side effect of using the rings on people. It seems that the radiation powering the devices is providing sustenance to the subjects and they have not felt tired or hungry since they were activated. I have scanned them all many times (the results are at the end of this report), but I have found nothing unusual._

_I believe this can work to our advantage as the purpose of the rings is as a weapon against the Wraith. The subjects can work tirelessly for many hours and no time will have passed for our enemy. Hopefully this will give us the edge we need when they soon arrive at Lantea._

_---------_

Rodney gazed up at Jennifer in a drug induced and sleepy haze. His face was still pale after his recent trauma and a cannula was looped under his nose giving him oxygen.

Jennifer recited the litany of his many injuries to him while John, Ronon and Teyla stood nearby. "We surgically repaired the damage and gave you a transfusion. We also checked your ribs; two are fractured and several are very badly bruised down your right side. Your arm and back are also severely bruised, but barring complications they should heal as long as you don't move around too much for the next few days."

Rodney blinked slowly and rested one hand over his belly on top of the bandages. He suddenly screwed his face up and flinched as he was hurt by one of his many injuries. The beeps from his heart monitor sped up alarmingly and it sounded like the device was going to explode at any moment.

Jennifer spoke soothingly as she inserted something into his IV line, "I'm giving you something to help ease the pain. It'll also send you off to sleep again."

John said, "We'll be here when you wake up, McKay."

Rodney's frightened eyes soon lost their focus and he slowly shut them. His breathing and heart rate steadied and his face tipped over to one side of the pillow as he lost consciousness.

John turned to Jennifer and asked, "How's our guest?"

Teyla and Ronon pulled up chairs next to Rodney's bed while Jennifer led John away from them and over to the other side of the infirmary. She shook her head and frowned down at the monitors as she studied them.

She turned to John and said, "He's not doing so well. At the rate his cells are degrading I don't think he has a lot of time left. You could say that time is finally catching up on him now that the device has been removed.

"Dr Zelenka scanned both him and Rodney with Janus' altered hand scanner. He said that prolonged exposure to the radiation could keep someone alive and ageless indefinitely. They were in a sort of stasis field, Rodney was able to heal his cut and keep going without any rest due to the radiation giving him the energy he required directly."

John looked down into the pale face of the man in front of him and narrowed his eyes, "It must be Solian. Has McKay said anything?"

Jennifer shook her head, "No. I don't think he'll fully wake up for at least a day after the surgery we had to do to stop the bleeding"

"How long does Solian have left?"

"It's hard to say. It could only be a few minutes or he may survive for several days."

John turned and looked back across the infirmary at Rodney's still form as he slept and glanced back at Solian, "McKay will be so disappointed if he doesn't get a chance to speak with him again."

Jennifer smiled sadly and nodded.

----------

_**Janus Log: Project 117 (Live Trials) – Day Seven**_

_The experiment started to go wrong today. Subject Three reported that he became trapped frozen in time for a number of years and could not exert enough control to get back. After he reported his complaint to me, I took him back to the planet to get the device removed, but he stole the key and vanished out of time._

_I am unsure how to proceed, as the other subjects are also reporting the same problem and it will take me several days to manufacture a new key and regain access to my equipment._

_The Wraith have begun to close in on the planet where I am hiding the power supply for my experiment. Time is running out for both the subjects and me._

_----------_

John was in a chair next Rodney in the infirmary as McKay sat propped up against his pillows and spooned jello into his mouth.

John asked, "So, how're you doing, McKay?"

Rodney dropped the spoon back into the pot and sighed, "It feels like I've just aged about ten years in ten hours."

John's eyes widened in shock, "You weren't out of time for ten years were you?!"

"I don't know. I didn't really keep a tab on it and my watch stopped before I was pulled out of there."

John whistled softly and leant back in his chair while Rodney finished the rest of the jello.

Rodney placed the empty container on the table next to his bed and shuddered as the motion stretched his stitches. He rested both of his hands on his middle and asked, "How did those crazy locals know about the metal bands?"

"Zelenka told me he found evidence in the data he downloaded that the lab has been activated on more than one occasion over the last ten thousand years. He reckons they managed to break in there and activate a video or log entry and that fuelled their paranoia."

Rodney narrowed his eyes, "You don't think the fact that the planet used to be a Wraith outpost helped them along the way? I'm sure there's a lot of nasty stuff still hanging around that they left behind."

"Probably. Zelenka doesn't think the lab can be shut down without causing damage to subspace. He's going to take a team back soon and check it out."

Rodney raised his chin indignantly, "Can't he wait for a few days? I'm sure I can figure out how to shut it down."

"Don't like the idea of people still running around out of sync with us, McKay?"

"Not really." He sighed loudly and flinched, "Ugh, I don't ever want to touch any pieces of metal again."

John smirked and held up his hands in surrender, "I'm not flushing the toilet for you, McKay! You'll just have to get over it."

Rodney scowled and then his face softened when he saw the other occupied bed which he had insisted on being pushed up next to his. He asked, "How's Solian? Has he been awake yet?"

John glanced at the other bed grimly and said, "No, Keller's not sure that he will before the end. He's very weak."

"Oh, that's a shame. There's so much I want to ask him." Rodney released a small breath in sadness and closed his eyes.

John remained there long after Rodney's exhaustion forced him into sleep once more.

----------

Rodney sat in a wheelchair next to Solian out on one of the piers. They had both been granted a few minutes to leave the infirmary. The sun shone down warmly and a cool salty breeze drifted over the ocean and enveloped both of them.

Rodney glanced across at Solian's pale face and furrowed his brow when he saw how gaunt and tired the other man looked. Through it all though, Solian was smiling and he closed his eyes happily as he lifted his face towards the sun.

John, Teyla and Ronon had helped them get out there at Solian's request and had now left them to be alone for a while.

Solian opened his eyes after a few minutes of taking in the sounds of the sea that he had not heard for over ten thousand years and looked at Rodney who was still gazing at him in sorrow.

He said, "I spoke with Radek about the data Janus left behind for you. I was able to decode as much as I could remember. I believe there are now several logs pertaining to 'Project 117' that you should be able to access."

"Uh, okay. I'll have to have a read through later."

Solian smiled at him and his eyes lit up in gladness as he said, "Thank you, Rodney. You saved my life in more ways than one."

"I saved _your_ life?" Rodney said incredulously, "As I recall, you kept getting me out of the way of that lunatic before he got me on many occasions."

"I am also sorry," Solian frowned and gestured across at Rodney's midsection where the bandages were well hidden beneath his shirt, "That I could not prevent him from stabbing you and that you had to suffer for so long before I found you. I am glad he did not kill you or I would still be there now."

Rodney grimaced and then tilted his head to the side as he asked, "Why didn't you just ascend like the rest of the Ancients?"

"Oh, believe me, I tried for an eternity to leave that place. But I could not. Rorkan was binding me there and now that he is gone and I no longer have that infernal metal around my neck, I am free."

"I hope we can shut down the lab back on the planet." Rodney's eyes widened a little in panic, "I wonder how many others are still trapped out of time?"

Solian answered tiredly, "The data I decoded for you should be able to help."

Rodney sighed softly and turned away to look out across the water.

Solian reached across and gently squeezed his shoulder, "Do not be sad, Dr Rodney McKay. It is nice to finally be able to die after all this time. After all, who would want to live forever knowing that everyone you ever knew was already dead? The world remains the same and carries on and on into eternity in the timeless place."

Solian released his grip on Rodney and leant back in his chair again.

McKay suddenly gasped as his abdomen pained him and the rapid inhalation jolted his broken ribs. He closed his eyes tightly and waited for the tremors to subside. He considered calling Sheppard on his radio, but he managed to control himself with his hands pressed down on the bandages. He drew in shallow and steady breaths until the pain diminished to a more manageable ache.

He narrowed his watering eyes and squinted across at the sea. Without looking at him, he asked Solian, "So, where do you want to go now?"

When he did not receive a reply, Rodney looked across at where Solian had been sitting next to him and his eyes widened in shock when he saw that the other man had gone. He called out in alarm, "Solian! Solian?"

They were too far away from the edge of the pier for him to have fallen into the ocean and Rodney had not heard anything other than his own rasping breaths as the healing injuries abused his senses.

His questioning and fearful expression quickly dissolved into happiness when he realised what had just happened. He whispered into the wind rolling over the pier, "He ascended…"

John had been watching them from a short distance away to make sure they were both alright and he was grinning at what he had just witnessed. He let Rodney have a few more minutes, before he went over and wheeled the contented and smiling scientist back to the infirmary.

----------

_**Janus' Log: Project 117 (Live Trials) – Day Eight**_

_I have made a terrible mistake. I am hoping that one day it can be rectified and that my colleagues will read this. I do not expect you to forgive me, what I have done is too thoughtless to deserve your forgiveness. I never meant for you to become trapped out of time like you have._

_I realise now that I was a coward for not participating in my own experiment. The planet where I hid the power source is now overrun with Wraith. I cannot shut it down. If I demand it, the others will find out what I have done. I have no choice other than to go to Earth with them and leave the seven trapped here forever. In the hope that maybe one day they will be able to figure out how to free themselves._

_I am sorry…_

----------

The End

_A/N – As always, thanks for reading and for the lovely reviews!  
They make me very happy! x Varda x_


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